


Wizarding 101: Murderous Megalomaniacs and Their Lasting Effects on Children

by thiswackolife



Series: The Devil's Son [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (at least for the daredevil side), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Handwavey Shenanigans, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Kid Fic, Multi, in this case: daredevil and his lawyer boyfriend, quietly smooshes 616 and mcu together, we're very sorry to jk rowling.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4738721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiswackolife/pseuds/thiswackolife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Voldemort set foot inside Godric Hollow, Vernon Dursley died in a car crash. The shock of it sent Petunia into a catatonic state and, thus, into an institution--but once upon a time, Lily and Petunia Evans' mother was a <i>Nelson</i>, and so when Albus Dumbledore lays Harry Potter at the doorstep of Number Four, Privet Drive, it isn't Petunia Dursley that finds him.</p><p>It's Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson.</p><p>Ten years later, Harry Jonathan Nelson, of Hell's Kitchen, New York, finds himself a part of a world neither he nor his guardians suspected he was ever a part of, having instead thought of himself as a metahuman with vaguely nebulous powers being trained by the Scarlet Witch, and along with discovery comes danger. It'd be a lot more terrifying, though, if his hometown didn't regularly have supervillains holding up banks and traffic, and if superheroes didn't swing past their apartment every day. And, of course, if one of his parents wasn't <i>Daredevil</i>.</p><p>(or: Matt and Foggy raise Harry Potter, with assistance from Karen and Kirsten and some others. things go from there.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Childhood Lived

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings:** there are instances of homophobia and fantastic racism--things you'd expect from purebloods, actually. while much of it is mentioned and does not come from the main characters, some homophobic and anti-Muggle sentiments are directed towards Matt and Foggy and the other non-magical characters, as well as magical characters with non-magical characters. there's also at least instance of depression being depicted, and in one early scene some minor characters throw Islamophobic insults towards a Muslim character. also, there's a snake, and it squeezes the life out of a guy. there are also instances, later on, of brainwashing and torture--think Winter Soldier-style brainwashing and torture--and mentions of forced drug addiction. if I've missed any warnings, let me know!
> 
> story time: this started because I thought, _hey, wouldn't it be nice if Matt and Foggy ended up raising Harry Potter instead of the Dursleys_ , and ballooned into an entirely different universe. oops. this is me playing fast and loose with the timeline of both canons and mixing in 616 when I feel like it. AOU happened differently, Wanda and Pietro were duped by HYDRA and have Romani heritage, BruceNat is not a thing, Clint is Fraction!Clint, jsyk.
> 
> (disclaimer: there are lines of dialogue here and there lifted straight from the books. if something a character says is familiar to you, that's probably why.)

There is a universe where, two weeks before the day Voldemort walked into the Potters' house with intent to kill, Vernon Dursley does not take a fateful right turn and finds himself on a collision course with a very big Mitsubishi.

There is a universe where Petunia Dursley's grief does not drive her to a mental institution, where Dudley Dursley does not end up in the system, where all three of them make a perfect, normal little family, normal enough for someone to drop a baby on their doorstep.

There is a universe where Foggy Nelson gets sick and doesn't come to the Nelson family reunion, in London, a universe where he and Matt don't stay at Number Four, Privet Drive in the meantime, a universe where Lily Potter's last gift is kept safe by her sister, not her cousin in America.

There is a universe where Dumbledore does not leave Harry Potter to be raised by a man with a heart bigger than anything, and Daredevil.

And there is a universe, where they all do.

\--

Matt was the first one to find the kid--at the time, Foggy had been asleep, dreaming of chocolate bunnies and the usage thereof in the bedroom. Matt had been trudging back after a night spent Daredevilling, as Foggy would say, and had chosen this time of night to come back for the sole reason that most people on Privet Drive would be asleep, and thus not panic upon sight of a man in a red leather suit trudging back to where the Dursleys once lived. It was possible he was dripping blood.

He smelled the boy first. There was an odd scent clinging to him, like the copper smell of blood and something else, a smell like ozone, but the boy seemed mostly unharmed--was even rolling in his blankets. Matt knelt down, and felt a note attached to the basket the baby was in.

He gathered the baby up in his arms, making sure to support the head, and knocked on the door, _rat-a-tat-tat tat, TAT-TAT_.

When Foggy Nelson, groggy from sleep and wearing Captain America pajamas, opened the door and saw the baby in Matt's arms, he screamed and woke the boy, who started crying too.

Matt said, a little annoyed by all the noise, " _Please_ stop screaming."

\--

After they'd brought the kid in and he'd calmed down for Matt to explain how he'd found the baby, Foggy unfolded the letter, read it over with a horrified expression, and said, a little shocked, "What the fuck are we going to do with a baby, Matt?"

Matt shrugged. "We could talk to authorities," he said. "Find out who his parents are, and who left him at our doorstep."

"His parents are _dead_ , Matt," said Foggy, his voice thick with grief. Lily had been one of his favorite cousins when he was younger, for all her outlandish claims, and to hear of her death was like taking a blow to the heart. "This is Harry Potter--I told you about him, Lily sent us pictures, and she--she's _dead_ , some nutjob broke into her house and killed her and her husband--"

"Then we take care of him," said Matt. "At least until we can find someone willing to take him in."

"Oh my god, Matt, are you seriously suggesting--we're broke, you go out at night to _punch people in the head_ , that is not healthy--"

"I know," said Matt, "but do you have any other ideas?" He sighed, and said, "We'll stay here, see if we can't find someone who'll take him in. If we can't, we'll take him back to New York with us."

\--

Nobody took him in.

Matt and Foggy, their course thus decided, took Harry Potter in instead, going through all the proper channels to take him with them and change his citizenship. It took two months more than Foggy was originally planning to stay in London, but it was worth it, because by the time they came back to America, Harry Jonathan Nelson was theirs for good.

Which was all to the good, because they had fallen in love with the little tyke and his green, green eyes. Foggy dimly remembered Lily's eyes as the same shade of green.

Dumbledore watched them leave Number Four Privet Drive, little Harry Potter bundled up in Foggy's arms and burbling happily at Matt Murdock, and made a few adjustments to his plan, taking the American muggle lawyers into account.

Especially American muggle lawyers who moonlighted as famous vigilantes.

\--

When Harry started to manifest his magic, it resulted in a number of broken furniture in Matt and Foggy's shared apartment, and a little boy crying that he hadn't meant to do it, really, he'd only been scared because of a movie he'd watched.

Foggy took one look at the wreckage, scooped his boy up into his arms, and said, "Aw, Harry, we know. Come on, let's get you to bed," and whispered _what the fuck are we gonna do_ to Matt, who was ten feet away and gingerly stepping over the remains of their coffee table.

Matt had connections, was the thing, and a lot of those connections owed him favors for pulling their ass out of danger, physical and legal--especially legal, since the superhero civil war only four years ago. Soon enough, the Scarlet Witch was standing in the middle of their apartment, helping to move new furniture in and speaking with Harry, who listened to her with rapt and wide-eyed attention only a five-year-old could give a subject that had really caught his roving eye.

"You're an _Avenger_ ," he'd breathed, eyes wide with amazement.

Wanda had chuckled, and said, "Yes, I am. My brother is as well, though you may not want to say it to him as you said it to me." She lowered her voice, like she was telling him a precious secret, and said, "His ego is very big already, and we do not need it to get any bigger, yes?"

"I'll tell Pietro you said that," Matt dryly said, across the room, where he was running his fingers over Thurgood Marshall. Again. At age five, Harry could recite entire passages of Thurgood Marshall, simply because Matt read it to him every night he wasn't out doing his night job. When he was, Foggy took over and read him Discworld and comics, and did the voices too.

"It's true!" Wanda called, then knelt down to meet Harry's eyes. "I can teach you how to use it," she said. "Your power."

Harry said, "Really?"

"Mm-hmm," Wanda answered, dark eyes twinkling. "We have many things we can break. But you must get permission from your fathers first."

\--

Foggy said, "Hell yeah! Get me Captain America's autograph, yeah, kiddo?"

Matt said, with great reluctance, "I'm not too sure about this, but if it helps--I'll come with you."

He came with him to the first, then the second, then the third, and before anyone knew it Harry was having regular summer sessions with Wanda on the things he could do that she could teach him how to control, with Matt standing by to help.

They broke a lot of things.

Harry came home with a huge grin on his face, and presented Foggy with Captain America and Bucky Barnes' autographs.

Foggy pretended to faint from the shock, then hugged Harry, big and tight. "You are the best little boy that ever got dropped on our doorstep," he said.

"I'm the _only_ little boy that ever got dropped on your doorstep!" Harry huffed, but hugged back.

\--

When Harry was six, he saw two older boys--nine or ten, thereabouts--picking on a young girl of only seven, pulling her ponytail and calling her names, telling her that she'd grow up to blow them all up. Harry knew those boys--they were the principal's sons, and the man let his boys get away with everything, with becoming the superpower of the playground, on the principle that _boys will be boys_.

They'd picked on Harry once, but didn't go so far as to punch him. His parents were lawyers, they didn't want physical evidence bringing them down. They did, however, call him names and jeer at him, sometimes stealing his glasses so he looked a fool trying to find them, sometimes telling him that Matt and Foggy had only taken pity on him, they didn't really love him, how could they love someone who was never theirs?

 _We must dissent from the apathy,_ Matt had read to him, once. _We must dissent from the fear._

Harry marched up to the two kids and punched one of them in the face, hard.

Later, Matt marched down to the principal's office, listened calmly to the explanation that the principal gave him, blustering and furious, about how Harry had attacked his boy, unprovoked, and what values did Matt teach his child, did he know the principal could have him expelled for what he had done? _Did he?_

Then Matt turned to Harry and asked, "Why did you hit them?"

"They were pulling Kamala's hair and saying she'd blow them all up one day like all the others of her kind," said Harry, his voice still shaky. "And--And she kept telling them to stop, and she was _crying_ , Matt, and--and they took my glasses, and they've been calling everybody names, and--"

Matt held up a hand, and turned to give the principal a Look. "If you want to keep your job, sir," Matt said, voice deadly calm, "I'd advise you keep your sons well in hand."

The principal gulped.

Afterwards, Matt took Harry out for chocolate ice cream, then to the gym, and showed him how to throw a punch. Properly, so he wouldn't break his thumb.

"They said you and Foggy didn't love me," Harry said, licking at his ice cream. It tasted good, but he was still preoccupied with what the principal's boys had said. "They said that I wasn't yours, that you just took pity on me 'cause I got left on your doorstep."

"They're liars," said Matt, hitting the punching bag very hard. He stopped, then turned to Harry, walking over and kneeling down in front of him, staring at Harry's left ear. "They don't know you, and they don't know us. You are kind, brave, sweet--whatever you do, Foggy and I will love you, and we are proud of you and always will be. As far as we're concerned, you're ours."

Harry felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Matt's face was open like a book, and here Harry could see that he meant every word, so earnest was his look.

He hugged Matt, and Matt made a noise that sounded like, _careful, Harry, careful,_ but he hugged back, tight and loving and careful, like he was afraid he would break Harry like fine china.

\--

From the second she saw him, bundled in Foggy's arms like a precious thing swaddled in blankets, Karen was wrapped around Harry's little finger. She cooed over him in his crib, and growing up, she let him crawl around the law offices, sometimes picking him up and pretending he was an airplane.

When Harry was six and three months, Foggy got kidnapped. Matt searched frantically for him, leaving Karen to sit for Harry while Matt looked.

"Is Foggy going to be okay?" Harry asked, worriedly, as Karen tucked him in. It had been a bad night, Harry was too anxious over Foggy's disappearance to do much of anything, so Karen had called it a night and told him to sleep early, Matt would find Foggy.

"He will be," said Karen. "Did I ever tell you, he rescued me once from a bunch of mean guys?"

" _Really_?" Harry sat up in bed, fascinated. "What happened?"

"Well," said Karen, "I had gone to meet with Elena--you know Elena, we told you about her--and after, I was about to go home when I realized a bunch of very scary guys had followed me. They were going to hurt me, but you know what Foggy did?"

"What?"

"He knocked one of them on the head with a baseball bat while I maced another," said Karen. "Foggy's going to be okay. He survived Matt, and he's raising you. He can be very tough when he wants to be." And she gave him a hug, and said, "He'll come back home, Harry."

When Foggy came back home, he was leaning heavily on Matt, and was sporting a black eye and an arm in a cast. But when he saw Harry, his face lit up and he knelt down and said, "Hi, Harry!"

"Foggy!" Harry shrieked, nearly sprinting to hug Foggy but skidding to a stop, and instead gently putting his arms around him. Karen watched the proceedings with tears in her eyes that she kept wiping away, and was quietly thankful that Foggy had come home.

(The kidnappers were in the hospital. At least three were in critical condition.

The Devil did not take kindly to people hurting his family.)

\--

There were a number of strange incidents, as Harry was growing up, that Foggy and Matt figured had something to do with his abilities. He had a better grasp of them now than when he was five, helped along by lessons from the Scarlet Witch herself, but sometimes, _just_ sometimes, they'd manifest themselves in odd ways.

For example:

One day, Foggy had taken it upon himself to cut Harry's hair, which was an utter mess that went every which way. Asking Matt, of course, was out of the picture--Matt could do a lot of things, but Foggy had let him cut his hair once and had been horrified at the results. He gave Harry a fairly short crew cut, and pecked him on the scar on his forehead and gave him a lollipop. The next day Harry's hair had grown back out in messy curls, and Foggy gave up on ever taming that mess, grumbling about Harry's hair having a mind of its own.

Another time, Harry was staying at Nelson & Murdock when someone came in--huge, blustering, demanding a lawyer. He'd proceeded to utterly dismiss Foggy and talk down to Matt and Karen, and Harry had been so angry at the sight that suddenly the would-be client started to inflate, as though filling with helium, then float upward to the ceiling while greatly resembling a balloon, and began screaming at the top of his lungs. For that, Matt gave him a half-hearted lecture on keeping a lid on his abilities, and Foggy took him to get ice cream and told him to at least let them handle the problem clients instead of making said clients float to the ceiling, hilarious as that was. Karen didn't even pretend to be mad, giving Harry a thumbs-up when she next saw him and getting him chocolates.

Another time, Matt had come along with Harry on a school field trip that had then turned sour, with Leap-Frog showing up and Matt having to change into his suit to deal with him. Harry had panicked, then, when Leap-Frog had Daredevil by the neck, and suddenly Matt had disappeared, and was scrabbling on for purchase onto Leap-Frog's back when he popped back into existence. Leap-Frog was arrested, afterwards, and Matt had come back with a black eye and a deeply unsettled look, but didn't say a word to Harry about it, just hugged him tight and close.

Then, on occasion, there was a stranger who would recognize Harry, for some reason, who would gasp in surprise and shake his hand, who would try to high-five him, who would say things like " _you're so handsome_ ", and Foggy would see red and grab Harry and hiss at those strangers, because this was a _child_ they were touching and making uncomfortable, this was _his boy_ , and he would _sue_ the everloving shit out of every single one of them if they dared hurt his baby boy.

But after every strange incident, all that would happen to Harry was, at worst, a stern lecture--mostly it went something like _don't get hurt, please, it'll break my heart_. And always, always, Matt and Foggy and Karen stressed that, no matter what, they loved him. Even when Matt was low.

And sometimes, Matt got very, very low.

\--

Harry was used to Matt's low periods, when he hit eight. He knew what to watch for--the picking at his food, the monosyllabic sentences, the days when Matt wouldn't get out of bed for anything. Foggy couldn't always be there, but whenever Matt got low he did his best. Harry filled in when he couldn't come.

Today was one of those days. Matt was curled up under silk sheets, as though trying to get smaller, when the door to his bedroom creaked open. This was Harry, tiptoeing in with a bag of apples fresh from the market.

Matt was famously picky about his apples, and Harry had tried his best to remember what he'd said about each stall. Eventually he and Karen had settled on some organically-grown apples from a young woman who Harry assumed was Laura of Laura's Farm, and Karen had dropped him off at home where Matt still was.

He hadn't moved from his spot. Harry climbed onto the bed and said, "Matt?"

Matt made a noise that sounded like, _go away_. Harry pulled out an apple, then set it near Matt's nose.

"I got you apples," he said. "Karen says hi, by the way. And Foggy says he hired on some new people, too, and that you'll like them. Or. Well. Just her. I think Karen likes her most."

Matt lifted his head, a little bit. There was a small victory right there, and Harry allowed himself to feel a little bit triumphant. "Y'should be at school," he said, his voice hoarse as though he hadn't used it in a day.

"They let out early," said Harry. "Did you eat?"

Matt said, "Don't know."

"I can make you eggs and bacon," said Harry. Foggy had taught him how to cook, and Harry was beginning to get a bit better at it--at least he didn't burn pancakes anymore.

"Okay," said Matt, his tone making it clear that he didn't really care what Harry made, or what happened to him, curled under his sheets.

"I'll leave the apples," said Harry. "They taste good. I tried them out myself."

Matt tried a smile. It looked kind of wrong, like a caricature of a smile instead of the real thing. "Guess so," he said.

Harry helped him sit up, saw the wince when he pressed on a particularly bad bruise. He moved his hand quickly, and eventually Matt was up, leaning against the headboard, an apple in his hands. Harry counted it a small success, and left to call Foggy and let him know he was fine, and Matt was doing a little bit better.

Later, after Matt managed to eat one apple, he said, "Harry?"

Harry was chowing down on a strip of bacon--Matt hadn't been in the mood, and had told him to just eat it instead, it'd be a waste of good bacon--and glanced up at Matt. "Mmf?" he said, through a mouthful of bacon.

"I'm sorry about today," he said. "You didn't have to. Do that, I mean."

"Of course I did," said Harry, puzzled. "You're my dad."

Matt's mouth fell open, and he looked so surprised that Harry, for a moment, wondered if he'd said something wrong. Then he said, "I--I guess so," and smiled--the real thing, hesitant and shaky, but real.

\--

Ten years had passed, since the night Dumbledore left Harry on the doorstep of Number Four Privet Drive. In those ten years, Foggy had established a solemn tradition, and that was taking Harry wherever he wanted on his birthday, within reason. They had to establish that last part after Harry joked about visiting Asgard for his birthday, and Matt had paled so much at the idea that it was vetoed immediately.

It wasn't that they couldn't visit Asgard. It was that Matt had actually been there once, and did not fancy going there again, much less letting Harry go there.

So, as the summer came in, Matt and Foggy, a week before Harry's birthday--which happened to be just the day before the first day of the Young trial, which would be filled with prep for the trial--took Harry to the zoo. He'd been dying to go since he heard about some of the newest attractions, and thus Foggy'd bought tickets and prodded Matt into coming along with them. Had he not, he would've buried himself underneath piles of paperwork for the Young case, and in Harry's opinion, that was all well and good, but it was his _birthday trip_.

"Technically," Matt had dryly said, standing near the entrance with a handkerchief over his nose, "it's not your birthday trip."

"But you've got that Young case," said Harry. "So technically this is my birthday trip! Just a few days early."

"Quit yammering," said Foggy, taking Harry's hand and hooking an arm through Matt's elbow. "Oh, hey, ice cream! Want some, little buddy?"

Harry did want some, and said so. Foggy got him chocolate ice cream, and bought vanilla ice cream for Matt as well, "because vanilla's safest for his taste buds."

"You know I can still taste all the individual ingredients," Matt said.

"See what I have to put up with?" Foggy said to Harry, who laughed and licked his ice cream. It was a normal trip, a normal day. " _See_? Eat your vanilla ice cream, Murdock, and don't complain."

"It tastes like dirt," Matt said, with a grin, and Foggy reached over to swat his shoulder.

In retrospect, that illusion of normality would've been shattered sooner or later, but it held up until they got to the reptile house, Harry talking Foggy's ear off about boa constrictors and how they squeezed the life out of their prey before eating them whole.

"Remind me not to let you get Harry any more nature documentaries," said Matt.

"But it's important! You know, in case you ever find yourself in a situation where you're being strangled to death by a boa constrictor," said Foggy. "Hey, can you--"

"Not through glass, Foggy," said Matt.

Harry slipped away from Foggy's grasp, as he and Matt bickered playfully with each other. He'd known them for long enough that he could guess at what would happen next, which was Foggy planting a wet one on Matt, and preferred to divert his attention away from what would no doubt scar him for life even more than the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.

(If Foggy knew what his boy was thinking, he would protest, and say that they weren't that bad, it wasn't like they were f-- _kissing_ in dirty alleyways the way they used to, and Harry would get the distinct feeling that there was something Foggy was leaving out.)

"Wake him up, Papa!" someone was shouting excitedly, pointing at the glass window, behind which a boa constrictor was curled up, sleeping. On the side was a sign in bold letters: DO NOT TAP THE GLASS.

Harry crept up, silent as a mouse.

"Yeah, lemme try," said the father, raising one hand with fingers like sausages to rap against the glass, loud. Harry startled, then glanced down the hall--Matt didn't seem to be paying attention, though his brow had creased and he'd cocked his head in another direction, as though listening to something.

"Aww," said the kid, "he's not waking up. This is boring."

"Jesus," said the father, "what kinda snake doesn't wake up when it hears it's supposed to? C'mon, Brad, let's find you something else to look at." He grabbed his son's arm and marched him away from the boa constrictor, never seeing Harry.

Harry watched him leave, then crept up to the glass window. "I hope he didn't bother you," he said, though he didn't really expect an answer. Snakes didn't talk, though this one seemed--well, it seemed lonely, was the best word for it, behind the glass window, and Harry could sympathize. For all the love Matt and Foggy and Karen and even Wanda, his longtime teacher, showered on him, sometimes he looked at the mirror and wondered.

The snake lifted its head, its eyes snapping open to reveal beady black pits.

And it _winked_.

Harry made a small, startled noise, then looked down the hall again. Matt was giving Foggy a quick peck before running off, probably to deal with something. He looked down the other end of the hall, where the father and his son had exited.

Then he looked back at the snake and winked back.

"I'm sorry that happened," he said.

The snake gave him a look that said, " _I get that a lot._ " Harry got the sense that, if it had shoulders, it would shrug.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

The snake uncoiled, its tail jabbing towards the sign: _Boa Constrictor, Brazil._

"I've never been to Brazil," said Harry. "Is it nice there?"

"Harry, sheesh, you talking to snakes?" said Foggy, coming up behind him. "Heya, uh--boa constrictor, _wow_. C'mon, Harry, time to wrap it up."

The snake jabbed its tail again. _This specimen was bred in the zoo_ , said the sign.

"Aww," said Harry, in a tone borrowed from frequently hanging around Avengers HQ when he and Wanda were done with lessons, overheard from Clint Barton. "I've got to go."

The snake seemed to nod, a little.

Foggy squinted. "Did that snake just nod?" he asked Harry.

"I think so," said Harry, letting Foggy tug him down the hall. "Where are we going?"

Foggy opened his mouth to answer, but suddenly the doors at the other end of the hall blew in, and Foggy let out a curse and grabbed Harry, back to the suddenly light-filled tunnel.

Harry squinted. There was a figure, in red, lying prone on the ground in front of where the boa constrictor's window and struggling to get up. Horns, plated armor, split lip-- _Matt_ , Harry realized, fear stabbing through his stomach, sharp as a knife. And standing over him was a man in a serpent hood, smile like a dagger as he put one foot on Matt's chest.

"I wonder," said the snake man, "how much it'll hurt you if I break all your ribs." Then he looked up, and saw Foggy, hugging Harry close to his chest. "Ah, Nelson and his son. I wonder where Murdock went," he said, in a tone that said he knew exactly where Matt Murdock was--underneath his boot, trying to breathe. "Be a shame if he were to come back, and his husband and his son were lying dead in the debris."

"Don't you dare," Matt hissed, grabbing onto the man's leg. The man pressed down.

What happened next came fast--one moment, the glass window was there, the next it was gone, and the snake behind it struck, wrapping around the man fast and choking him, eliciting a long, high-pitched scream that tapered off into gurgling. Harry didn't see his eyes bulging out, because Foggy had covered his eyes by then.

Matt got to his feet, trying to wrench the snake off the man, but by the time the snake slithered away it was too late.

"Shit," said Matt, dazed. "What--"

"Oh god," said Foggy.

"What did I do?" Harry whispered, staring at the corpse.

The snake, before it had slithered away, had looked at him again, and Harry could swear it smiled at him, the sort of smile that said, " _Thanks for letting me out. Hope you don't mind how I repaid the favor._ "


	2. Letters, and the Art of Hiding

The first thing they did, after police statements were taken and Foggy lied about seeing the Son of the Serpent break the glass in some misguided attempt to call on his fellow cold-blooded reptile for help, was call up Wanda for help.

The second was give Harry hot chocolate and drape a blanket over him.

"I didn't know he'd do that!" Harry said, after Wanda arrived and asked him, what, exactly, had happened. "I didn't--I was just _talking_ to him, and then Matt fell through the doors and the window just--Wanda, it _disappeared_ \--"

"Harry," said Wanda, "look at me. _Look at me_. It's fine. The deed is done, the man is dead, and no matter what you do, you cannot turn the clock back."

"But I _killed_ him--"

"No, the snake did," said Foggy, unwavering. "That's what the police think, and that's what I think. You didn't tell it to murder the guy, it just wrapped its--its snakey body around him and squeezed the life out of him." He mimed wrapping his hands around something and squeezing.

"It means, though," said Matt, an ice pack over the impressive bruise on his chest, "that we're going to have to teach you to control your powers. Somehow."

Harry looked to Wanda.

"I must admit," said Wanda, a dark note of humor in her tone, "I would've liked to make glass windows disappear while Pietro and I were held by HYDRA." She sighed, and said, "I am not so certain I can help with this, Matt. His powers are expanding beyond what I can help him with, at my own level of expertise. Right now, I can only show him how to rein it in and bottle it up, which may not be the best course of action."

"So what do we do?" Foggy asked, anxious.

Harry sipped at his hot chocolate, his head spinning. In a matter of hours, much of what he knew and took for granted about the world had been upturned, with the snake and the dead man and now Wanda, his longtime teacher, admitting that she couldn't teach him any more than she already had. Not without training of her own, at least.

And that was when the owl thudded into the window.

"The hell?" said Foggy, rushing to the window. Matt huddled slightly closer to Harry, a hand settling on his shoulder. "Um, any of you know any barns around New York?"

"No?" said Matt.

"I think Barton's farm has an owl handy," said Wanda, mildly.

Foggy opened the door, and the owl hopped through. It was definitely a barn owl, but it had an envelope in its beak, which Harry knew was not usual--owls were not usually messenger birds, after all. Foggy took it in his hands, then shooed the owl out the window, shutting it before going over to sit next to Harry. "It's for you," he said.

"Me?" said Harry. "But--I know I returned those books."

Matt sniffed the air, and said, "It doesn't smell like the library. What does it say?"

Harry took the letter from Foggy's hands, setting his mug aside and running his hands over the address:

_Mr. Harry Potter_  
The Smallest Bedroom  
Hell's Kitchen, New York, New York, United States of America 

There was no stamp.

"Okay," said Matt, once Harry told him, "clearly, someone's stalking you." His brow creased, and he said, "I'm not--fuck, they probably know about--"

"Harry," said Foggy, firmly, taking the still-unopened letter from Harry's stunned hands, "pack your things. We're gonna throw this nutjob off the trail."

"But what about your case?" Harry asked.

"I'll ask Kirsten to handle it," said Matt, with a hint of pride for his friend and employee, and more than a little worry for his boy, for the family he'd somehow found himself forming. "Whoever's stalking you--we need to take care of that, first."

"So where do we go?" Foggy asked.

\--

"Matt," said Kirsten McDuffie with a sigh, as Harry and Foggy trooped inside and past the doorway, "is this a Daredevil thing?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Kirsten," said Matt, with an innocent grin. "I couldn't possibly be Daredevil."

"The more you deny it, Daredevil, the more I know you are," said Kirsten, poking his chest with her finger, just as Karen emerged from the bathroom with her hair wet and looked between Matt and Kirsten, near the doorway, and Foggy and Harry, unrolling sleeping bags and silk sheets from the duffel bags they'd brought along.

Foggy stared at Karen. Then he looked at Kirsten.

"Congratulations," he said.

"Why are we congratulating them?" Harry asked, somewhat confused.

"We'll tell you when you grow up," said Matt, feeling around Kirsten's apartment and accidentally-on-purpose knocking over a bottle of water. "Oh, sorry--"

"Sure you are, Daredevil," said Kirsten, " _sure_."

\--

The next day brought more letters.

" _The Couch in Miss McDuffie's Apartment_ ," Foggy read, out loud, after getting a pack of five letters from one very bemused postman and then pelted by a bunch of letters that had somehow exploded out from the vents above them while he was having coffee. "Yeah, okay, no, we are getting out of here, pack your things, Harry--"

"Are we gonna go to Claire's?" Harry asked.

Matt shook his head, stuffing his things into a false-bottomed suitcase. Underneath that false bottom lined with lead, Harry knew, Matt kept his suit. "No, I don't want to drag her into this," he said, before "looking" at Kirsten, who was staring at the letters like she'd seen a ghost. "I'm so sorry you got dragged into this, Kirsten."

"It's--It's fine, Matt," she managed to say, tearing her gaze away. " _Jesus_ \--whoever this is, they're persistent. You're going to have to shake them somehow."

"We tried," said Matt. "We've never gone to your apartment, there's no reason for them to think we'd be here, unless they kept an eye on us last night--"

"Which means," Foggy said, "that you'd better lie low too. You and Karen both."

"We can take care of ourselves, Foggy," Karen dryly said. She was wearing Kirsten's spare shirt, the one that read "Trust Me, I'm A Lawyer" in bold neon pink letters. "I'm more worried about you guys."

"We'll be fine," said Matt. "Just--keep the firm running while we're gone."

Karen let out a breath, then padded over to peck Harry on the forehead, where his scar was. "Stay safe," she said.

"I will," Harry promised her.

\--

They called Wanda, who promised to find them a safe place to stay. About twenty minutes later, a Quinjet landed on the roof of Kirsten's apartment building.

"Hey there, little guy," said Clint, bending down to scoop Harry up in a hug. Behind him, Wanda was leaning against the frame of the opening to the Quinjet. "Oof, you're getting heavy! What are D-- _Murdock_ and Nelson feeding you?"

"It's okay, you can say he's Daredevil," Kirsten said, with an innocent smile that had Karen giggling to herself.

"For the last time, Kirsten, Matt Murdock is not Daredevil," said Matt. "Should I get it printed on a shirt?"

"Yeah, put 'Hi, I'm Daredevil' on it, we'll sell it cheap and bolster our funds," Kirsten said, with a hint of a grin playing around her lips. "But seriously, though--you guys stay safe. We'll call as much as we can."

"You too, Kirsten," said Foggy, hugging her. He motioned to Karen, Harry and Matt to join in, then, realizing his mistake, said, "Get in here, Murdock, I'm not leaving you out of the hugging action going on here."

"What hugging action?" Matt innocently asked, but got in on it anyway. Harry broke away from Clint and joined in.

"This is adorable," said Clint, watching the hugging. "But we gotta go like, right now, or I'm gonna miss Dog Cops."

"Dog Cops!" Harry shouted, happily.

\--

The Barton farm was an unlisted address, situated in a small field somewhere in what Foggy called "middle of _Nowhere_ , USA", in Harry's range of hearing. Harry suspected Foggy was much more coarse about it when he was asleep, but it was understandable, because Foggy and Matt were city boys through and through.

"Home sweet home," Clint said, opening the door. A dog bounded up to him in greeting, standing on its hind paws and placing its front paws on Clint's thighs, panting happily. Clint laughed, then bent down, saying, "Hey, Lucky, I'm home--ah, _stop_ that--"

"He's licking him," said Harry, "it's kind of gross."

"Don't mind Harry," Foggy said, "he's at the age where he thinks everything to do with mouths is, automatically, gross."

"Well, it is!" Harry huffed, just as a redheaded man poked his head out of the kitchen.

"Christ's sake, Clint, _say something_ next time 'fore you bring more strays in," said the man, and Clint--the picture of maturity and adulthood--stuck his tongue out at him like one would their brother.

"I'm letting _you_ stay, Barney," he said.

"Of course you are, this is my home too, I'm your damn _brother_ ," Barney grumbled, trudging out of the kitchen. He squinted at them, then at Wanda, who was casually shutting the door with a wave of her hand. "There a reason why you brought your lawyers and their kid here?" he asked, with a long-suffering sigh.

"They're being stalked, and this was the safest place we could think of," said Wanda.

"Someone's been sending Harry eerily accurate letters," said Matt, in explanation. "Right down to the place where he sleeps."

"You didn't open them?" Barney asked.

"God, no," said Foggy. "Who knows what shit's been put on those letters? Anyway, this is just gonna be for a bit, then we'll be out of your hair." He grinned at Barney, and said, "You won't even notice we're here!"

\--

They were on Skype, catching Karen and Kirsten up on the past week's events--so far, no one had found them yet or delivered any strange letters, and Harry had overheard Matt and Foggy talking about heading back into New York soon, maybe as soon as the next day, and was looking forward to sleeping in his cozy bedroom again. Kirsten was talking about the trial's opening, and how it looked like they were going to win, and Karen was telling Matt about the prosecutor's frankly pasty look, when a wind began to howl outside.

"There a tornado warning or something?" Foggy muttered, looking up.

"Don't think so," said Matt, but he cocked his head to the side to listen anyway. Barney had gone--he had a job as an FBI agent, as it turned out, and only used the farmhouse in between jobs--and Clint was in the kitchen, watching the cake that Foggy had baked. Wanda had left for Avengers HQ, back in New York, but had left Harry a stuffed toy for his birthday. It was a dark, rainy night, and Harry figured the rain was playing merry hell with Matt's senses.

In point of fact, he could hear something too, the sound of something heavy banging against the stairs. Branches falling onto the porch, probably. There were plenty of trees nearby, and Harry spared a moment to feel bad for the Barton brothers and the repairs they would probably have to do to their porch.

"What's that?" Kirsten asked.

"And I swear, Matt, he looked so much like one of those classic movie vampires, with a widow's peak and everything, he was just missing--what is that noise?" Karen asked, cutting herself off in the middle of her story, her brow wrinkling.

"Footsteps," said Matt, and Harry felt a cold chill down his spine. "Sounds heavy--I'd guess 960 pounds, at least?"

" _Shit,_ " Foggy breathed, and raced out of the living room to get to his duffel bag upstairs.

Then came the knock.

All right, that was a very conservative way of describing it. To Harry's ears, it sounded like the boom of cannons, and beside him, Matt flinched at the sound. To Matt's sensitive ears, they must've been painful to hear.

Foggy raced back down, armed with his trusty baseball bat. Matt pulled out his escrima sticks, and there was a look in his eyes that was familiar and bone-chillingly terrifying to criminals of Hell's Kitchen. Harry hopped off the couch, crept up to the doorway just behind Matt and peeked out, to see Clint holding a gun steady in his hands, all trace of the joking man Harry had known for some time gone.

 _BOOM,_ came the knock, rattling the door. Harry heard Karen's voice, tinny over the laptop's speakers: "Oh my god, what--what's going on over there?"

 _BOOM,_ and the door gave.

\--

A man stood in the doorway--the largest man, in fact, that Harry had ever seen, and in a ham-like hand an umbrella. In Matt's radar-vision, he was a great big hulking thing that filled most of the doorway, smelling like sweat and rain and smoke, like dirt and animals, the way zookeepers tended to smell like the animals they tended to after a while. To Harry, Foggy and Clint, the man was definitely a great big hulking thing that only the Hulk could dwarf, and to top it off, he had a coarse black beard and hair that hid most of his face.

"Okay, creeper," said Foggy, as threatening as possible, which was impressive considering his usual demeanor. "You want Harry, you're gonna have to go through us."

"Couldn't ye make us some tea?" asked the man, genuinely puzzled. "It's not been an easy journey." He glanced at the gun that Clint had swung up to aim at him, and what little face Harry could see behind the coarse black hair and tangled beard screwed up in surprise. "Suppose tea's outta the question, then?"

"Yeah, haven't got any anyway," said Clint, finger moving to squeeze the trigger.

The man shrugged, then moved, fast for his size, and yanked the gun out of Clint's hands. It fired, but the bullet hit the wall behind him--later followed by Clint, who was thrown easily over the man's shoulders.

"Aww, wall," Clint groaned, as the man twisted the barrel of the gun into a tiny knot and tossed it aside like it was a broken toy. The now-useless gun hit him in the face, and he let out a moan and went limp.

Harry thought fast. This man was clearly strong enough to take out an Avenger, even one as human as Hawkeye, and he was terrified of what he could do to Matt, who still winced a little whenever Harry hugged him, and Foggy, who was completely human and a noncombatant besides.

He made his decision in that split second, and raced forward before Matt or Foggy could move, putting himself in between them and the huge man.

He looked up at the man and said, "Wh-- _Who_ are you?" (He congratulated himself a little on swapping out _What_ for Who.)

"Harry!" Foggy cried, racing forward and putting his body between Harry and the man. "Don't you dare--"

The man raised a hand, catching an escrima stick headed for his head. " _Merlin_ , did neither of you read the letters? We sent yeh a ton o'those!"

"Oh, those letters?" spat Foggy. "The ones that are probably all about how you want to do--creepy, bad things to our kid? _Hell no we didn't!_ "

"You're not exactly helping your case here," Matt commented, coming to stand beside Foggy. They made a strange-looking pair, the blind man and his husband, glaring up at a huge man that smelled like a zoo and had managed to knock out an Avenger just a minute or so before.

The man looked honestly surprised, then said, in a tone of complete exasperation, "Merlin, yeh're a right pair of Muggles."

"Muggles!" Foggy huffed. "The hell are those?"

"Non-magical folk like you," said the man, as if that explained it all, then he looked at Harry and--smiled. Kind, almost like Foggy's favorite Uncle Leo, and he bent down to meet his eyes. "I got yeh somethin'," he said. "Might've sat on it a bit, so it's an eensy bit squashed, but happy birthday."

And he pulled a box out of his giant overcoat. It was definitely squashed, like it had been sat on, but when the giant opened it, Harry saw a cake: a very misshapen cake, with the letters HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY on it.

Matt sniffed the air and said, "Is that chocolate?"

Foggy mimed slamming his head on his baseball bat, and said, "Shit, the _cake_ \--"

"You didn't answer my question," said Harry, though every part of him wanted that cake very, very badly, as children often do. "Who are you? Why--Why go to all these lengths to find me?"

"Sorry 'bout that," said the man, apologetic, then he stuck his hand out for Harry to shake. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

Harry took his hand, and Hagrid shook his whole arm. By the time he let go Harry was fairly certain his shoulder had nearly popped out of its socket, so hard did Hagrid shake it.

"Hogwarts?" Matt asked, puzzled.

"I betcha it's where he takes all the kids he kidnaps," Foggy whispered. "You do your ninja thing, I'll try and break his kneecaps."

"Yeh'd do well not t'try, sirs," said Hagrid, calmly. "And I'm ter deliver a letter. Since yer Muggle guardians didn't let yeh read them."

"That's sort of what happens when someone starts sending me letters that are a little too accurate," said Harry, dryly. He liked Hagrid, he decided. "But--why? I mean, I'm nothing special."

"Nothin' special!" cried Hagrid. "Harry Potter, nothin' _special_?" He glared up at Matt and Foggy, and said, "What have yeh been tellin' him?"

"Great," said Matt, "Steve's been rubbing off on him," and Foggy made a choked noise under his breath at the mention of Captain America's real name. "We told him what we knew," Matt continued. "His parents were murdered, we found him on our doorstep while we were staying in London, we brought him home with us. He started--manifesting strange abilities, we got Wanda to deal with it."

"Wanda?" asked Hagrid.

"Scarlet Witch," Foggy clarified. "How do you not know that? She's an Avenger, and she'd been helping Harry since he was five--except when all this trouble started she said something about not being able to help more."

"Never heard of her," Hagrid said, bluntly. Then he looked back at Harry. "S'pose there's no other way ter put this, but--yer a wizard, Harry."

Harry said, "Wait, _what_?"


	3. To London

They put the two cakes together on the kitchen table, along with the laptops--they'd still left Skype on, and Karen and Kirsten had heard everything, and were just as confused as Harry. Clint had been roused, tended to, and reassured that no one was dead and that Harry was okay, and then told to call Wanda and inform her about recent developments. He'd gone outside to get better reception, Lucky following behind him--apparently Hagrid had bribed him with a very delicious and very big dog bone.

Hagrid had also been reassured that, no, the two women on the screen were not actually photographs--apparently for him photographs _moved_ \--or actual women trapped within the confines of the laptops, and he was then given the chocolate milk that Foggy managed to scrounge up from the Bartons' fridge.

("Muggles and their techno-things," he'd said, wondering, poking at Kirsten's face on the screen. "Yeh mean this is normal fer yer lot?"

"You mean you don't know what a computer is?" Kirsten asked.

"I got no idea what yeh're talkin' 'bout, ma'am," Hagrid said, turning to Harry with a toothy grin. "The things these Muggles dream up, eh?"

He looked so surprised and amazed by all the electronics, in fact, that for a second Harry idly entertained a fantasy of Hagrid meeting Tony Stark and bombarding him with questions. He did not know that at that very moment, Matt was imagining the same thing and suppressing the urge to laugh at the thought.)

Harry turned the envelope over in his hands. Just like the others, it had no stamp, and the address was eerily accurate: _The Guest Bedroom on The Right, Barton Farmhouse, Vermont, United States of America_. He looked up, saw a pair of eyes staring expectantly at him from behind wild, tangled hair, and five more watching him anxiously.

Or, well, Matt was watching Harry's neck anxiously. He was definitely anxious, that was obvious enough in his eyes.

Harry tore the envelope open, and, with shaking fingers, took the letter out.

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he read out loud.

\--

"Holy _shit_ ," said Kirsten, when Harry had finished.

"Language," Karen chided.

"I'd have to side with Karen here," said Foggy, running a hand through his hair. "This merits a _holy fucking shit balls_. At least."

"You guys know I'm still here, right?" Harry asked.

"Considering that you keep sneaking out of your room to watch cable even when I've expressly told you not to," Matt said, dryly, "you've heard much worse." Then he took the letter from Harry's hands and ran his fingers over it, his brow furrowing when he hit the titles that Harry had skipped over. "Supreme Mugwump?" he asked.

"S'a prestigious title," Hagrid said, proudly. Harry figured this Dumbledore fellow seemed nice enough, though what did Mugwump even _mean_?

"I'm not sure about this," said Matt.

"It's wizard school!" Kirsten protested, throwing her hands up. Then she paused, as though remembering that Matt couldn't tell what she did over Skype, and lowered her hands, resting her head on them instead.

"It'd help Harry, right?" Foggy asked Hagrid. "He'd be able to get a better hold over his magic instead of just reining it in and hoping nothing blew up?"

"Bad idea, that," said Hagrid, shuddering at the thought. The couch shook with the force of his shudder. "Reinin' it in won't help. It'll leak out when he grows up. No, best ter go t'Hogwarts--safest place there is."

"I really doubt that," Matt murmured.

"It's all the way in Britain," said Karen. "Which could be good for him--Daredevil's enemies won't think to try to get to him there, since we associate with Daredevil a lot, and there's a lot less supervillains there." Her tone took on a slightly envious note, and she said, "I bet banks there only get robbed like, maybe once a year at most. Not like here, it happens every week or so. At least."

"No one would try to rob Gringotts, ma'am," said Hagrid, "on account of all the dragons there."

Karen's jaw dropped.

"Okay, so--say we accept what you've said," said Matt, cutting in before Karen could recover her powers of speech, "and I'm assuming you at least believe what you're saying--"

"You don't just tell people that, _Matt_ \--" Foggy started.

"I believe you," said Harry, and the argument stopped. "But--what about money? Matt and Foggy don't really make much. They can barely afford to give Karen and Kirsten a raise at the same time."

"Wow," said Foggy, mock-offended, "of course we can give Karen and Kirsten a raise!"

"Yeah, instead of ice cream we get ice cream with sprinkles on top," Kirsten said.

"Or ice cream floats," Karen added.

"Or ice cream and beer," said Matt, with a grin.

"Traitors and naysayers, each and every one of you," Foggy huffed, pointing at Matt, then the laptops.

"Oh, money," said Hagrid, with the casual ease of someone who had realized he had forgotten something but had been reminded, "that's no problem. Yeh didn't think yer parents wouldn't have left yeh somethin', did you?"

"What," said Foggy, "is Harry secretly the heir to a buried fortune?"

"Nah, it's no secret," said Hagrid. "Potters kept all their gold in Gringotts--that's the bank fer all the witches an' wizards of England. I dunno much about keepin' gold, but I know it's been gettin' bigger and bigger since--since--" He started to tear up, and Harry had to reach over for a tissue to hand over to him.

"Ah, no thank you, I got me own," Hagrid sniffled, and pulled out a grimy, dirt-stained handkerchief bigger than Harry's head and proceeded to blow his nose on it.

Matt, looking visibly unsettled, moved further away.

"What happened to my parents, if it's not prying?" Harry asked, out of a sort of morbid curiosity. "I mean, Matt and Foggy told me someone murdered them, but--there's more to the story that they didn't know about, isn't there?"

"Yes," said Hagrid. "Least they got that much right." He sniffled again and blew his nose, and said, "I'm sorry, it's just--it's been so long, an' I miss them still. An' I s'pose Harry should know, even if I can't tell him everythin'--some bits are still a great myst'ry, even now, but he's got ter know. Least so he knows his own story a little better." He sniffed again, wiped at his nose. "Can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin' it when _everyone_ does."

Foggy moved somewhat closer, and, awkwardly, patted Hagrid's back as reassuringly as he could. His hand came away stained with soot and unidentifiable things.

"It all starts," Hagrid began, "with someone named--and I don't know how yeh don't know his name, everyone does in our world--but he was named--I can't even say it."

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"Fear," Matt said, suddenly. "No one said Wilson Fisk's name at the beginning, either."

"With how casually you people throw it around now, that's kind of hard to believe," Kirsten said.

"You weren't there," said Matt, with finality.

"Yeah," said Hagrid. "Nobody likes sayin' his name if they can help it. People are still scared--we just call him You-Know-Who."

"We don't know who, actually," said Foggy. "I mean, for all we know, you could be talking about Stilt-Man! Or the Owl! Or Doctor Octopus!"

"We're too used to supervillains over here," said Karen.

"He was bad," said Hagrid. "Worse than--whoever those are. Worse than your supervillains. _Worse_ than worse, even. No one likes talkin' 'bout him, even after that night. But his name was--it was--" He stopped, bit his lip.

"Write it down instead," said Harry, standing up. "I'll get you Foggy's notepad--"

"No, can't spell it," said Hagrid, then he sucked in a deep breath, as though steeling himself to say the name that terrified him. "All right-- _Voldemort_. That was his name." He shuddered again, sending tremors through the couch. "Don't make me say it again," he pleaded.

"We won't," said Kirsten.

Hagrid nodded, and then began to tell Harry the whole thing.

\--

"Oh, Jesus Christ," said Karen, her hand over her mouth, after Hagrid finished. "Oh, _Harry_."

"I thought it was just a birthmark," Kirsten said, shakily. "Not--Not an _actual_ scar."

"So he wasn't just a nutjob, he was a _megalomaniacal_ nutjob, great, yay," Foggy muttered, massaging his temples. "At least he's out of action, right?"

"We thought Bucky Barnes was out of action," Matt said, ever the voice of pessimism and experience, at least when it came to criminals and murderers and even heroes who barely ever seemed to stay dead or in jail. "And the Lilac Killer. And Fisk. And--well, do I really need to go on?"

Hagrid looked horrified at the very idea. "Yeh can't be sayin'--" he started.

"No, he's not," said Foggy, giving Matt a glare, "because I am glaring at him right now and if he makes like a smartass and says he is, I'll kick his ass for bringing down the mood even more."

"The mood's already down, it can't go any further," Matt argued.

Harry sighed, and took the opportunity the ensuing four-way argument (because Karen and Kirsten had joined in, Karen on Matt's side and Kirsten on Foggy's) to cut the cakes into pieces and slide a slice of the one that had gotten slightly burned onto a plate, that he then wordlessly handed to Hagrid.

Hagrid stared at him in surprise. "It's yer cake," he said.

"I can't really eat two cakes by myself," Harry explained. "I'd get sick and Matt and Foggy'd get worried. Besides, we haven't got any tea, and you said it hadn't been easy getting here."

"True," Hagrid chuckled. "Harder t'get ter a place not in the books at all, had ter ask a lot of Muggles." He took the cake, and said, "Thanks."

"No problem," said Harry, glancing at Foggy, who was now gesturing wildly at Matt while narrating said gestures in between arguments about how Matt invariably always did the impossible and brought down the mood down even more. "They're lawyers, they'll be at this for a while."

They were, in fact, at it for at least fifteen minutes, during which Harry discovered that Hagrid could eat an astonishing amount of cake and consider that a small amount, for him, and Hagrid discovered that not only had Harry no idea that he was a wizard, he didn't know where to get an owl ("I think maybe there's one in the barn, Clint says it's a menace that gets iffy about territory, does that count?" "Gulpin' gargoyles, no! But yeh need to show me that owl before we leave.") and he didn't know the first thing about the Wizarding World. He was curious, though, enough to prod around the subject a little, and by the time Foggy finished ranting about Matt's greatest hits in bringing the mood down, Harry was listening with rapt attention to Hagrid's description of Hogwarts, having been told about the Ministry of Magic, the governing body of Britain's magical population beforehand.

(In Harry's opinion, the Ministry seemed incredibly incompetent to him, not to mention somewhat unnecessary because the world knew about aliens and magic and monsters now, but he refrained from mentioning that out loud.)

"--an' there's a giant squid in the lake, perfectly friendly fellow, doesn't try ter bother anyone when they row across--"

"There's a what in the _where_?" Foggy asked. "And are you guys eating all the cake?"

"You weren't eating it," said Harry. "So are you guys done arguing now?"

"Look, Harry," Matt started, "as good as it would be for you, to go to this--Hogwarts, we don't have enough money to scrape together right now to book a flight to Britain at all--"

"Stop James and Lily's son from goin' to Hogwarts?" Hagrid asked, and gave a great roaring laugh that shook the floor. "Yeh can't do that--his name's been down in the list since birth! It's in his blood!"

"It may be in his blood, but it's not in our funds," Matt said, tiredly, and he looked regretful that he even needed to say this. He fiddled with his shirtsleeve and said, "I'm sorry you had to go all this way--"

Then came a thunderous noise outside, and Harry rushed to the window to see the Quinjet setting down, Clint in the field signaling frantically to the pilot.

"You were saying about booking a flight?" said Foggy.

"Huh," said Matt, then, "I suppose I owe the Avengers one."

"Can I go to Hogwarts, then?" Harry asked excitedly, thinking of the castle and the lake and the professors and the world that he only now just found out about.

Matt bit his lip. "I don't know," he said.

"Matt," said Foggy, "we can't teach him magic. And you heard what the big guy said: it's the safest place there is." He patted Matt on the back with his clean hand, and added, "Besides, we've got one more month to go before we have to see Harry off."

"Fine," Matt relented, "but we go with him to get his school supplies." He paused, then added, "Foggy, could you let Karen and Kirsten know they'll be coming with us to--where was it?"

"Diagon Alley," Hagrid supplied.

"Diagon Alley," said Matt, and paused as Foggy and Kirsten cracked up laughing.

Karen said, "Wait, we're coming too?"

"Of course," said Harry, "you're family too, right?"

\--

Some time ago, Tony Stark made some upgrades to the Quinjet that allowed space for the Hulk to move around in without bumping his head into the ceiling if he didn't look carefully, and had also Hulkproofed the entire thing, after that mess in Fiji where the Hulk's weight sent him crashing through the Quinjet's floor.

Hagrid was not as big as the Hulk, but had this been an ordinary airplane, he would not have fit through the entrance. As things stood, it was still a challenge trying to get him to fit into a seat, and eventually they needed to remove an armrest in between two seats just to barely fit him.

They didn't even bother with the seatbelts.

"Muggles, eh, Harry?" Hagrid laughed, as Harry sat down next to him. "They keep comin' up with the strangest things!"

"Not that strange," Foggy argued, sitting down next to Harry. "Who's piloting this thing?"

"Hey, boys," Natasha greeted them, turning in the pilot's seat. Harry noted to himself that she'd changed her hair again, this time into a pixie cut. "I hear Harry's going off to wizard school."

"Wait," said Matt, sitting at least two seats away from Foggy, his cane in hand and his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, "how do you know that?"

"I have a few contacts in the Wizarding World, and they were all abuzz about Harry Potter coming back," she said. "Dunno if you've been told, but he's very popular there."

Wanda turned in the copilot's seat, and said, as though to answer an unspoken question, "I didn't know until she told me. Believe me, I would've said if she did," and sent Natasha a withering look that the Black Widow promptly ignored. "I thought the point of releasing your secrets to the world was not keeping any more from those that needed to know it," she acidly said.

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?" Natasha said. "You're the favorite aunt here, not me. Besides, secrets are a hard habit to break." She sounded sorry about that much, at least, turning back to the wheel as Clint stepped onto the floor, the hatch closing up behind him. "So what's the first stop?"

"New York," said Matt. "We've got two people we need to pick up."

\--

"So, Daredevil--"

"Haha, very funny, Kirsten," said Matt. It wasn't turning out the best night--first Hagrid, then the Hogwarts thing, now this: stuck in the Quinjet, which now smelled a lot like a particularly filthy gym locker, with notes of oak lingering in the air, strangely enough. Harry was snoring on Foggy, who was--also snoring, at least he knew where Harry got that habit from. Hagrid was snoring worst of all, there was even that smell coming from his mouth, and Matt felt silently sorry for Karen, who'd switched seats with a now-sleeping Wanda. "How could I even be Daredevil? You've seen me trip."

"After I said you were," Kirsten said. "Most of the time, you get around just fine, even sans cane. Plus, you and Foggy and Karen are absolutely terrible about keeping it a secret, and Harry barely even bothers." She waved a hand in front of his face. "Can you see that?" she asked.

"See what?" he asked, innocently. In a manner of speaking he could, but he wasn't sure how to describe the radar sense without resorting to the world on fire line.

"Me, waving my hand in front of your face," said Kirsten.

"So that was what that strange flapping noise was," said Matt. "I thought that was just birds."

"You're utterly hilarious, you know that?" Kirsten dryly said, but she drew her hand back, propping it up instead on the arm rest and resting her cheek on it. "You going to be okay?" she asked.

"I," said Matt, "am just fine. Peachy, even."

"Really?" said Kirsten. "Harry going off to a boarding school in Britain doesn't bother you even a little bit?"

Matt bit back his caustic response-- _yes it does, I raised him, of course it bothers me_. "He can handle it," he said, and the casual tone sounded false even to him.

"I don't know how you became a lawyer or how you managed to keep everyone from finding out about your night job," said Kirsten, "because you're clearly terrible at this lying thing."

"So I've been told," Matt said, with a sigh, leaning back in his seat.


	4. The Leaky Cauldron

Natasha had connections, and a lot of those connections owed her quite a few favors. That, Harry supposed, was why, when he woke up, it was in a rather nice hotel room with a plate of piping hot breakfast (at least it _seemed_ like breakfast) on the bedside counter. He didn't even remember landing or being carried out of the Quinjet, which was a testament to how heavy he slept the last night.

It still felt like a dream. A very nice dream, where a very hairy giant told him he was a wizard and Matt and Foggy and Kirsten and Karen and even Wanda came with him to London to pick up his school supplies, and the only indication that it was actually real was the fact that this was not, in fact, his room, or his bed.

He sat up, swung his legs out of the bed, and trudged out of the bedroom to find Hagrid enjoying a cup of tea that was dwarfed by his hands and talking with Wanda.

"Oh, yer awake!" Hagrid cried. "Your old teacher's been tellin' me 'bout yeh, said yeh were quick at pickin' things up. Yeh'll love it at Hogwarts."

Harry paled. He had an idea of the kinds of things Wanda liked telling people about, and it always started with how they first met. "Please tell me you didn't tell him about the time with the table when I was five," he all but begged.

"No," said Wanda, smiling innocently, "but now that you mention it--"

"No," Harry whispered, horrified. "Oh my god, Wanda!"

"He's right, you know," Matt said, emerging from the larger bedroom, his hair mussed from sleep and eyes hidden behind dark glasses. He felt around for the edge of the couch, then perched on top of it, and Harry wondered how much of that was a performance for Hagrid's benefit, how much of it was just habit, and how much of it was actual need. "You probably shouldn't tell Hagrid about how you first met Harry."

"That's a right shame, I wanted ter hear it," said Hagrid, looking droopy.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Matt," he said.

"You should tell him," Matt continued, smirking, "about the time when Harry made Captain America's shield disappear mid-flight."

"That," said Wanda, approvingly, "is a _much_ better story."

"No, it's _not_!" Harry protested.

"Hey," said Foggy, poking his head out of the bedroom. "Are we telling embarrassing stories about Harry? 'Cause there was this time he turned Claire's hair pink when she babysat for him--"

" _Foggy!_ "

\--

Heading to Diagon Alley with Hagrid was something of an adventure in itself. Music shops fascinated him, and more than once he'd stop and ask about a restaurant or a store or even a parking meter. Harry was pretty sure they looked a sight: a little boy accompanied by a blind man clinging on to his husband's elbow, an Avenger--Clint and Natasha had taken off to talk to a contact or two about some kind of mission, and had left Wanda with them--dressed in casual wear, a woman in a dark, lawyerly suit and another in a light pastel dress, and a man who made even Karen in heels look small and would likely have been mistaken for a bear if he wasn't talking about Muggles and the things they made.

It said something about how long he lived in New York that he was genuinely puzzled why people were looking at their little group oddly until he remembered where he was. London, unlike New York, did not regularly have its banks robbed and its citizens accosted by a colorful variety of supervillains, and it did not have superheroes swinging on skyscrapers on a regular basis.

"We're close ter Diagon Alley. Yeh still have yer letter, right, Harry?" asked Hagrid, after Matt had nearly bumped into him for the nth time because he'd stopped to admire something so mundane as a phonebooth. Harry had taken Matt's hand by then and squeezed it to reassure him he would help guide him, and Foggy had given Harry a proud look.

"Um," said Harry.

"I got it," said Foggy, pulling out that first letter from his pocket. "I was going to turn this in to Brett as evidence, but hey, no need for that now, huh?" He handed it off to Harry, who let go of Matt's hand and opened it.

"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there, of everything you need."

Harry took out a second piece of paper, and read the list out loud, mostly for Matt's benefit. Now and again, he looked up to see people glancing at him and the little group gathered around him as he recited, as though wondering if this was some kind of street theater they were missing.

When it was done Kirsten said, thoughtfully, "You know, I had a school play once where I played Elphaba. I think I can dig out a pointy hat from my closet just fine."

"Can we spraypaint my old bathrobes black?" Foggy wanted to know.

"I have a pair of protective gloves," said Matt, and Harry was fairly certain he meant the gloves he used to wear back when everyone called him the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, not Daredevil. "They're not--dragon hide, but they're tough."

"You can borrow my mace," Karen told him.

"You've got a mace?" Hagrid asked, clearly surprised. "You're a lot stronger than I thought, if you can heft one."

"Not that kind of mace," Matt said, wearily.

"We really should've taken that cranky barn owl in Clint's barn," said Wanda.

"No, I think it hates me," said Harry, who had met the owl while running an errand for Clint four days ago and had gotten shit on for it. "And everyone else, come to think of it."

"Please don't remind me," said Foggy, darkly, because he'd nearly gotten scratched by the damn thing on another occasion.

"Might be you could, no, no it's gotta be dragon hide or he'll get burned badly, I'm still not sure what kind o'mace yeh mean, and there's a place sells owls in Diagon Alley," said Hagrid. "First, though--the Leaky Cauldron." He grinned. "It's a famous place."

"If it's so famous, why have we never heard of it?" Kirsten asked. "No, wait, don't answer that, I figured it out. Where is it?"

"Just turn right," Hagrid said, and turned to lead them.

\--

Matt said, "Argh, is that a bar?"

"What bar?" Foggy asked, confused. "I don't see anything."

"You sure you're not just smelling another bar nearby?" Karen said.

"No, we're right in front of a bar and I can smell it," Matt said. He did not say that he could also tell where it was. "Wanda?"

"Can none of you see the bar?" Wanda asked, sounding surprised. "No offense, Matt."

"There's a bar?" Kirsten asked.

"That," said Hagrid, "would be the Leaky Cauldron," and he pointed at the bar that Matt had smelled. "Surprised y'knew where it was," he rumbled, "Muggles don't usually tend ter notice it, with the spells and all."

"Huh, you were right," said Foggy, "there is a bar. Wait, are you--"

"Ooh," said Harry, in the tone that Matt, from experience, knew to be afraid of, because it usually meant he'd found a new place and was hell-bent on exploring it, and for a little guy he could be _fast_ when he wanted to be, " _root beer_!" And then he took off.

"Harry!" yelled Foggy.

"God _dammit_ ," said Matt, and took off, a fraction before Hagrid did.

"Matt!" yelled Kirsten behind him.

\--

One thing Harry had learned about Matt and Foggy was this: the best way to make them go where he wanted was to slip their grasps and just go there, and one or the other would be right behind him. It was probably mean, but it was effective.

Besides, bars meant root beer! And root beer tasted great.

It was possible that Matt and Foggy, in an act of great overprotectiveness--after the last non-Claire babysitter turned out to be a supervillain--and shortsightedness, had once brought him to Josie's when he was three. Josie had been understanding and had let Harry stay, as long as he knew that he was not to try and put anything in his mouth, especially not what her regulars were drinking. She did, however, make a root beer addict out of him.

Josie's looked better than this place, at least--it wasn't as dark and shabby, and it had more people around. Harry weaved and bobbed in and under tables and empty chairs, taking care not to hit anyone, and grabbed on to the bar and hoisted himself up.

"Huh," said the bartender, who looked rather like a rapidly balding peanut, squinting at him. "You're a tad young, aren't you?"

"Harry!" Matt bellowed, and Harry turned to see him vaulting over a final table. "Sorry, I'm blind!" he said to a wizard who'd been smoking a long pipe and was now staring, horrified, down at the spreading beer stain on the front of his robes.

"Gallopin' Gorgons, Harry," panted Hagrid, coming up behind him.

Foggy poked his head inside, brow creasing, and said, "Should we really be in here?"

Harry gulped. Matt had come to a stop in front of him now, and had folded his arms across his chest, giving him his best " _I am so disappointed in you_ " look. He half-suspected Matt learned it from Steve, or that they were at least related in some distant way to each other, because Matt's disappointed look could rival Steve's, and Steve's disappointed face could stop _wars_. That was the theory, anyway.

Then the bartender said, "Good Lord, are you--can this be?"

The Leaky Cauldron went horribly, terribly still, just as Foggy took one tentative step inside, followed by Karen, who was bolder about it but still doubtful, Kirsten, who slid in beside Karen, and Wanda, who Harry personally believed could simply walk into Mordor if she wanted to.

"Hello, Tom," Hagrid greeted him, casual as anything. "Got any of the usual fer me?"

"In the back," Tom said absently, eyes still fixed on Harry. There was awe there, the sort of awe Harry had seen directed, usually, at Captain America. "Bless my soul--Harry _Potter_ , it's--it's an honor, sir."

"What am I," said Matt, to the room in general as at least one person dropped what they were doing, "chopped liver?"

"They've probably seen crazier things than a blind man doing parkour," Foggy dryly said, sliding up to Harry.

Kirsten gave Matt a raised brow, as though to say that she had seen it and was going to tease him about it for weeks, then perched herself on a barstool.

The bartender practically tripped over himself and the counter, ignoring everyone else in order to seize Harry's hands and shake it, joyful tears forming in his eyes as he said, "Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back--we all owe you so, so much--"

"Um," said Harry, who was more than a little unnerved by the insistent usage of the last name he had not heard in years. _It's Nelson, actually,_ he didn't say, having frozen up in his place.

Foggy stepped closer. So did Matt. So did Wanda. So did Karen, and Kirsten. Years of paranoia about Daredevil's enemies (and the Scarlet Witch's) had instilled in the tiny law firm of Nelson & Murdock a protective streak a mile wide, and for all that they seemed a mismatched group, they were effective at crowd control.

Hagrid beamed proudly for a moment, then looked at Harry, looked at the protective group that had surrounded him, then stepped a little bit closer himself.

Chairs scraped back, and within moments that tiny little group surrounding Harry found itself having to organize and discreetly vet (and in some cases, downright steer away) a crowd full of grateful and downright starstruck wizards who wanted to shake his hand.

"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter--"

"Um," said Harry, as the old woman curtsied deeply to him. Matt very unsubtly stepped closer.

"So proud," gushed another, "I am so _proud_ \--"

"Excuse you, I got here first," Matt did not actually say, but _oh,_ Harry was fairly certain he was thinking it.

"Always wanted to shake your hand," began one wizard, but Kirsten took one look at him and said, "Maybe wash your hands first."

"Merlin's sagging left te--" started another.

"Language," said Wanda, looming as best as a woman who stood at 5'2" could. It wasn't very much, but she put in the effort.

"He's eleven," added Karen, who was much taller at 6'2" with heels and succeeded at looming over the poor man. Harry reined in the effort to laugh, because every one of them had said far worse around him.

"Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can't tell you, Dedalus Diggle's the name--"

"Oh, yeah," said Harry, remembering. "You bowed to me in a shop and Foggy kept giving you the stink-eye."

He saw Dedalus Diggle's face light up like it was Christmas and Santa Claus had just said he was going to get his very dearest wish, no catch at all. "He remembers me!" he announced to the whole bar. "Harry Potter remembers me!"

"Foggy Nelson also remembers you," said Foggy, with false cheer as he set a hand on the guy's shoulder and fixed him with a dirty look, "so let's step a little further from the clearly uncomfortable kid now, shall we?"

Then a pale, nervous man hurried forward, one eye twitching badly. Harry got the feeling he was practically terrified of him, and tried to give him a reassuring smile. The man's eye just twitched all the more.

"Um," said Harry, again, helpless.

"Professor Quirrell!" Hagrid cried. "Professor Quirrell will be one o'yer teachers at Hogwarts, Harry," he added for Harry's benefit.

"He's got a turban, it's purple," said Harry, for Matt's benefit. "And he's twitching a lot."

"P-P-P-Pleasure to m-m-m-meet you, Mister P-P-Potter," said Quirrell, sticking his hand out for Harry to shake. It was trembling all on its own, and trembled even more after Harry shook it some. "A-A-A-And who's with y-y-y-you?" he asked.

"Matt Murdock, sir," said Matt, his own smile a frozen rictus. (There was something deeply, deeply wrong about Quirrell, he could hear someone else's breathing muffled by the man's turban. _I don't trust him,_ he thought, and knew Wanda would pick up on that.)

"And Foggy Nelson," Foggy added, eyeing Quirrell like he was a ticking time bomb ready to go off. "Sir. We're Harry's legal guardians."

"Wanda Maximoff," said Wanda, coolly, staring at Quirrell with narrowed eyes, as though there was something about his manner she found deeply suspicious. "I used to teach Harry."

"Ah, the M-M-Muggles!" Quirrell exclaimed, looking ready to faint under the amount of scrutiny he was being subjected to from all three. "And a-a-an Avenger--I assume y-you are an A-A-Avenger, Miss M-M-Maximoff?"

"You assume correctly," said Wanda, her tone cold as frost.

Harry said, somewhat desperate to keep his guardians and his former teacher from subjecting his new one to a rigorous interrogation, "So, uh, what magic do you teach? Professor Quirrell."

"Matt, Foggy, Wanda, cool it, the guy's shaking out of his skin," Kirsten murmured, and Matt somewhat visibly seemed to relax. Some, anyway. Kirsten smiled at the man, a more genuine smile than the ones Matt and Foggy had pasted onto their faces, and said, "You'll have to excuse us, we came from New York. There is a seriously high amount of supervillains there, can't turn a corner without bumping into someone trying something funny." She shrugged, as though that explained everything. "Harry's class got attacked at least twice on field trips," she said.

"Three times," said Karen, absently. "He was absent the third time."

"I t-teach D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," Quirrell managed to say, staring at both Kirsten and Karen with an utterly terrified look on his face, "b-but I guess you d-don't really n-n-need it, huh, P-P-Potter?"

Harry wanted to tell them that technically, his name wasn't Harry Potter, it was Harry Nelson. He wanted to point out that he had not been Harry Potter for quite some time now, that they had fixed an image of a fictional savior in their heads that he, Harry Jonathan Nelson, could not possibly live up to. He wanted to do it, but he had a feeling all these people who were somehow looking up to him despite being taller would not listen to him at all.

So instead he gave Quirrell a polite smile and said, "Well, I'd still like to learn."

\--

"I did not know you were that popular," Karen commented, after all of them had managed to stumble out of the Leaky Cauldron, unharmed and intact, though Harry was now clinging tightly to Matt under the guise of guiding him around. "It's--enlightening."

"You mean Foggy was this close to suing them all because they were making Harry a little too uncomfortable," said Kirsten. "Which, please don't, we have literally no money."

"Told yeh he was," said Hagrid. "Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh--mind, he's always tremblin'. Your guardians prob'ly didn't help matters much." He shot Matt a look.

Matt said, "If you're glaring at me, let me remind you that I'm blind." His casual manner, however, was betrayed by the way he gripped his cane tightly, as though something about Quirrell had alarmed him greatly.

"You vaulted o'er a table like you weren't," said Hagrid.

"Very, very blind."

"He bumped into a lamppost once," said Harry, a hand disappearing into his pocket. "I've got photos of the bruise on my phone, you want to see?"

"Ooh, _yeah_ , I still got video of that too--" said Foggy, digging around in his jacket.

"I am going to deny both of you ice cream for a whole week," said Matt, with no real heat behind his tone.

"What was with that Professor Quirrell?" Wanda asked, striding alongside Hagrid rather easily, for someone of her small frame. "He seems a bad fit for his subject."

"Poor bloke," said Hagrid with a sigh, "brilliant mind," and he told them about how Quirrell had taken a year off from the job some time ago to try and get some field experience in, having until then worked with theory alone, but when he'd come back he'd developed a stutter and jumped at every passing shadow, which was--not a good idea, when you were teaching Defense Against The Dark Arts. "Still, s'not like you can get many people fer that," he added. "Defense Against The Dark Arts has--well, people say a lot o'things about it bein' a wee bit cursed, it's not a good position ter be in, s'all I can say. So he's still around. He's decent folk, believe me."

"I am not so sure," said Wanda, quietly, her gaze cutting briefly to Matt.

Kirsten elbowed her and said, "The guy's a nervous wreck, cut him some slack."

Harry had, in fact, met worse than vampires and hags, living in Hell's Kitchen and, more generally, New York. He didn't see what was so scary about them, but he supposed it was all in where you stood and how you saw it.

Hagrid wasn't paying attention to them now, busy counting bricks in a nearby wall. Three up, two across, Harry saw, and Hagrid lifted his umbrella to tap the point of it against a brick three times. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the brick was suddenly sucked away, as if into a vortex, and then the bricks around that hole were sucked away as well until they stood in front of a hole that led to a place that was definitely a lot bigger than an alleyway. Then again, he was used to the dark, grimy alleyways of Hell's Kitchen. This, with bright, shining cobblestones and bustling crowds of people in robes and pointy hats, was the furthest thing from that.

"Matt," said Foggy, "I really, really wish you could see this, because holy _shit_."

"Holy _fucking_ shit," said Karen, blue eyes wide as saucers.

"Holy fucking shit _damn_ ," said Kirsten, boggling.

Wanda was the first to step through the hole, and said something in harsh Slavic syllables that sounded very, very rude, and Harry was pretty sure he caught three different slang terms for dicks and sex in her speech. At least. Wanda was well-versed in swearing, having picked up plenty of curses as an orphan and even more in the company of the Winter Soldier (and, unbeknownst to most, Captain America).

"I take it you're all impressed?" said Matt, dryly.

Harry stepped through, and it felt like stepping into another world. "Yeah," he breathed, then turned back to help Matt through. "Is this--" he began.

Hagrid grinned. "Welcome," he said, "to Diagon Alley."

Wanda sniggered, and said, very quickly, "No, no, it's fine, carry on."


	5. Diagon Alley, or: Harry Punches Someone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings:** I already said this before, but in this chapter, there's an instance of casual homophobic, ableist and fantastic-racist comments made about Matt and Foggy in Harry's vicinity. the commenter gets his comeuppance, but it happens so.

The goblins, witches, and wizards working at Gringotts that day stopped working, for a moment, when they heard the distinct tapping of a cane against the shining marble floors. Some of the witches and wizards gaped when they saw the group of Muggles and the giant, others--those who had kept up with the news of the Muggle world, at least--gasped audibly when they saw the Avenger, and all of them started whispering when they saw the little boy with messy dark curls following along beside Hagrid, listening to his explanation of Wizarding money.

"So what's with all the--what did you say they were, goblins?" Kirsten asked, cutting into a comparison of dollars to pounds to Galleons and Sickles and Knuts. "Last time I checked, human tellers worked just fine."

"For yeh," said Hagrid. "Goblins are bloody good at keepin' track of money."

"Think we can hire one to juggle the books?" Foggy murmured to Matt, who snorted out a laugh.

"We can't afford another employee," Matt whispered back, and the two of them broke into a fit of giggling, drawing even more attention from the people inside Gringotts whilst Hagrid and Harry spoke with a goblin who wasn't busy balancing checks and books, and who occasionally shot the small group dirty looks.

"You know what I keep thinking?" Karen said to Kirsten, who occasionally glanced over her shoulder as though waiting for something.

"Yeah?" said Kirsten.

"Any moment now, someone will burst through the doors and try to rob the bank," said Karen, and mimed pointing a gun at Kirsten's head. " _This is a stick-up!_ " she whispered, _sotto voce_.

"This might surprise you," said Wanda, her tone dry, "but not every bank gets robbed weekly."

"Just nearly every bank in New York," Karen said, a dark amusement borne out of years of experience coloring her tone.

"I know," said Kirsten, "but it's been years since I've been in a bank for more than ten minutes without my life getting put in danger, it feels so weird. Like you've gotten knocked off-balance."

"Exactly," said Karen.

Matt, in the meantime, wrinkled his nose. "Are those expired dog biscuits?" he asked.

Foggy squinted at the desk, where Hagrid had just dumped--"moldy dog biscuits, ugh, you got that right," he said. "There's a guy--I mean, a goblin weighing a _fuckton_ of rubies, can't make this shit up, and I'm pretty sure someone's inspecting an actual diamond near Karen? Holy crap, I feel so underdressed. There are actual jewels and actual _gold_ being examined and weighed near us, I--do you hear anything? Like, screaming, yelling, ' _this is a stick-up, put the money in the bag_ ', that sort of thing?"

"No," said Matt.

"England is _so weird_ ," said Foggy, somewhat envious.

Matt hummed, cocked his head and listened. There was, so far, no telltale click of a gun, no snarling threats, nothing that sounded out of place in a highly efficient bank.

All right, a highly efficient bank run by goblins, but when you got down to it, they worked the same way some humans back in New York did, taking absolutely no shit from anyone. They just happened to smell different, like--metal, he supposed. Precious things.

He listened, and heard Hagrid saying something about a You-Know-What in 713.

"I will have someone take you--and your Muggles," said the goblin, with some disdain upon the word, "down to both vaults."

He gave the goblin a cold smile, in turn, one that quickly melted when Foggy turned to him.

"Wow, Matt, I think that goblin Hagrid's talking to has it in for you," Foggy said.

"I can't imagine why," said Matt, quite innocently.

\--

They ended up taking two carts: one for Griphook, who was the goblin taking them down, Harry, Hagrid and, unfortunately for Matt's sensitive nose, Matt, and the other, linked up just behind them, for Foggy, Karen, Kirsten and Wanda.

When Harry was younger--about nine or so--he and Foggy had decided to go to Coney Island, and ride a rollercoaster while they were there. When they were done, Harry had nearly thrown his lunch up in a nearby trash can, so upset had it been by the twists and turns and sharp drops of the ride. This was comparable to that experience, and he tried his hardest not to scream, grabbing on very tight to Matt's arm, keeping his eyes open despite the cold that stung them.

Matt made a strangled noise that sounded like he really, really wanted to scream, though that was probably more because of Harry's tightening grip than anything else.

Behind them, Karen was letting out a long, loud string of curse words, and Wanda was competing with an extensive vocabulary and creative usages thereof. Foggy was just screaming.

Kirsten, admirably, was staying very silent, but when Harry chanced a glance back she had her eyes screwed shut and was gripping on to the front of the cart like it was a lifeline.

There was a burst of fire, somewhere above. "Was that a _dragon_?" he shouted.

"Think so!" Hagrid yelled, and it was surprisingly difficult to hear him, considering he was in the same cart. He looked a bit green. "Don' ask me questions anymore, I think'm gonna be sick!"

And that was just before they plunged. Behind Harry, the expletives raised in volume.

At last, the carts stopped beside a small door in the passage wall. Foggy and Kirsten practically scrambled out first, gripping on to each other and trying to get their breath back. Wanda and Karen didn't leave the cart for a minute or so, because Wanda was too busy holding Karen's hair back. Hagrid stumbled out of the cart and had to steady himself against a wall.

Matt, who parkoured regularly across Hell's Kitchen and thus did stunts with more twists than the ride they had just experienced and fell off buildings with more height than the recent drops, patted himself down as though checking for something and stepped out of the cart, and whistled a merry tune. "That was fun," he said.

Wanda said something to him that Harry was fairly certain had something to do with goats.

"Eat my entire ass, Murdock," Foggy panted, finally getting to his feet. His hair was wild now, and his eyes slightly manic.

"We can do that tomorrow," Matt said, smirking. His glasses were slightly askew on his face, and his hair had been mussed by the wild ride, but other than that he was the picture of utter calm, especially compared to the rest of them. He rubbed at his arm where Harry had gripped him, the only sign that he'd been anything other than calm during the ride.

"I'm right beside you," Harry said, annoyed and a little grossed out by the idea.

"Is this usual for you?" Griphook asked, eyeing the two Muggles with a slight frown.

"They're sappy and gross," Harry told him.

Griphook sighed, then unlocked the door. Green smoke billowed out, and Matt coughed something that sounded like "oh my god _salmon_ ", but when it dissipated--

"Oh my _god_ you're rich," said Kirsten, eyes wide.

Wanda swore again. "I'm coming to work for you full-time, and I expect to be paid handsomely," she told Harry, her tone joking.

"I quit, and I'm going to work for your kid now too," Karen jokingly informed Matt, who pouted at her. "He probably has books that need balancing. A lot of books. Right, Harry?"

"Maybe not, Matt's pouting," Harry said weakly, staring at the gold. And there was a lot of gold, mountains of it that Harry quietly imagined diving into like a swimming pool, the way rich men did in the movies. Not only was there gold, more than Harry had ever seen before in his entire lifetime, but he caught flashes of silver, heaps of bronze, and all of it his.

"How much is this in American dollars?" Foggy asked Griphook.

"$3.8 million," Griphook promptly answered, and sighed again when Foggy made a strangled noise at the back of his throat and whirled around to grab Matt by the shoulders.

"Three-point-eight mil!" he shrieked, shaking Matt by the shoulders. "Matt! We could be rich! We could have our own offices with glass windows and steel and chairs we can't sit in right and _the best view ever_! And a building taller than Avengers Tower!"

Harry snorted out a laugh. "We can't afford a building taller than Avengers Tower even with this kind of money," he said, reasonably.

"Maybe taller than the Flatiron?" Foggy hopefully suggested.

"No," Matt told him, and Foggy pouted at Harry.

"Matt, Foggy's pouting at me," said Harry.

"Traitor," Foggy muttered, but he and Hagrid helped pile some of the money in a bag as Matt and Kirsten grilled Griphook for the specific terms of the Potters' will, and how it related to Harry. Harry later asked Griphook, just before they boarded the carts again for 713, about how the will related to his legal guardians.

"Oh, the Muggles," said Griphook, somewhat dismissively.

"My dads," said Harry, very firmly. "They've got a law firm going, and it takes on more pro bono cases than cases that pay. I've got the money, I need to do something for them."

Griphook inclined his head, and said, "We goblins have dealt with Muggles before. They tend to be blustering fools, even moreso than wizards, but they have a very large amount of money that needs moving." He smiled, and said, "I suppose some of your inheritance can help them keep the lights on."

\--

There was nothing in 713 but a grubby little pouch, tied with twine.

Wanda squinted at it, though, sensing a power coming off whatever was inside that pouch, a power that could change the course of lives. And off of it, she could glean images--familiar images, of family dinners and laughter that had been snatched away from her and her brother's hands too soon, of herself surrounded with fiery red sparks of magic.

Matt's senses, enhanced as they were, helpfully informed him that whatever was inside the pouch that Hagrid was guarding as though it were precious was a rock. He could smell it. At the same time, though, they were also telling him that it smelled like blood and wrappings, sweat and the metallic tang of copper, the aftershave his father used once upon a time, the citrus shampoo Foggy used to wear back in college.

Both of them kept a careful eye (or at least Wanda did) on the pouch, at least until Hagrid stuffed it into his pockets.

\--

Foggy nearly kissed the ground after they left Gringotts. "I missed you, solid ground," he'd cooed, and Matt had to drag him up and tell him he was getting very jealous of the ground. Harry made a strangled noise in the back of his throat when he heard that, and desperately offered to pay them whatever they liked if they could _please_ keep from being gross and affectionate in public.

"Tempting offer," Foggy had said. "What do you think, Counselor?"

"I think it's bribery, Counselor," Matt, who had once happily bribed Harry into behaving with promises of ice cream, said.

Eventually, the little group split up: Hagrid, because he was still a little ill from the cart ride, had decided to head down to the Leaky Cauldron to get his bearings. Wanda, her interest piqued by their surroundings, had picked a random shop and was now wandering into what Harry was fairly certain was a store that sold such things as newt's eyeballs and lizards' tongues. That left the law firm of Nelson & Murdock and their tiny little mascot milling around, reading over the list.

"Robes first," said Kirsten, firmly.

"I'll come with you," said Foggy.

"We'll go check out the cauldrons, then," said Karen. "See if there's anything made of pewter there. Matt, I'll need your nose."

"Nice to know you only want me for my nose," Matt deadpanned, then gave Harry a peck on his forehead, to the left of his scar. "We'll be back," he said.

"Love you too," Harry responded, and Matt beamed, letting Karen tug him along.

Kirsten took Harry inside Madam Malkin's shop, Foggy standing outside to wait for his husband. Madam Malkin greeted them with surprise, noting that she had never had a Muggle in her shop before. "Hogwarts, eh, dearie?" she said, grinning at Harry. Something about her reminded him of sweet old Mrs. Figg and her cats. "Got the lot here, there's another boy getting fitted up now--you just come with me, your, ah--"

"I'm kind of his aunt," Kirsten said, utterly deadpan. "It's a long and complicated story."

"She can wait here," said Madam Malkin, and ushered Harry into the back of the shop, past robes being brushed by brushes that levitated and worked busily, their hems stitched and restitched by needles that deftly wove in and out of the fabric with no hands to guide them. He stopped to gape at them just a tiny bit, then continued on.

There was a pale, blonde boy with a pointed look to his features in the back of the shop who had a second witch fussing over him. He looked up at Harry and said, somewhat bored, "Hogwarts too?"

"Yes?" said Harry, wondering at the kid.

"My father's next door buying my books," said the boy, still bored, "and my mother's up the street looking at wands. I think when we're finished here, I'll drag them off to look at racing brooms. Everyone else has one, I don't see why first-years shouldn't. I'll smuggle it in somehow once Father's bought it for me, show off to people."

"My dad and his secretary are checking out cauldrons," said Harry, carefully. The boy raised a pointed brow, as though Harry was somehow beneath him and he was only talking with Harry to amuse himself. It rubbed at Harry the wrong way, made him think of the bullies he had punched in the playground all those years ago. "And I really do mean cauldrons," he added, so the boy wouldn't get the wrong idea.

"Of course you do," said the boy, in a tone that implied he pitied him. Harry reminded himself that punching him was not, in fact, a good thing. "Have you got your own broom?"

"No," said Harry.

"Play any Quidditch?"

The hell was that? "No," Harry said, very careful now.

"I do," said the boy, loftily, and launched into an explanation as to how it would be a crime for him to not be picked to play it. "Know what house you'll be in yet?" he finished.

"Um," said Harry. "No. Why, should I?"

"Well, no," said the boy, "but I'll be in Slytherin. There's no way I can't be one, everyone else in my family is. It's respectable. Anyway, if I were to be sorted somewhere else I would leave, just--pack my bags and go straight home."

Harry had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but he decided very quickly that he did not want to be anywhere near this boy, who was slimy like a snake in the worst way.

And he had dealt with one snake before.

"I dunno, I'm glad to go at all," he said, neutrally.

"I say!" said the boy, looking out the front window. Harry turned his head, spied Kirsten and Karen with Matt and Foggy just outside hugging, then Foggy peppering Matt's face with kisses. "I can't believe they let that sort in here," said the boy, his lip curling in utter disgust, "four Muggles, and they must be American. Look at those two kissing, that's just disgusting, and one of them's blind at that--I wonder who the poor bastard is who has to put up with that display, though I suppose that one's lucky he's blind and can't see--"

Harry had heard enough, and practically flew out of Madam Malkin's grasp to punch the boy in the face.

There was an audible crack, as his fist connected with the boy's nose.

And then the boy punched right back.

\--

"He was insulting you! He was saying nasty stuff about you and Foggy--"

"You could've challenged him to a backalley fight," said Karen, mildly.

Matt sighed, and finished mopping up the blood from Harry's nose. The fight that Harry had gotten into had resulted in Harry breaking the kid's nose and the kid chipping Harry's tooth, and it had also gotten Madam Malkin mad enough to throw them both out on their asses. At the very least Harry had his robes now, Matt was glad for that much. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Kind of," said Harry, and Matt heard the rustle of fabric as his shoulders slumped. "Are you mad at me?"

"Well, buddy, there are always gonna be jerks," said Foggy. "Matt and I have fought a lot of them in court. The trick is figuring out which jerks you can fight and which jerks are gonna need a lot more than a well-applied fist to the face." He paused, then added, "Which was great, by the way."

"You need to pick your fights," said Matt, knowing exactly how hypocritical that came out even before Kirsten snorted softly behind him. Yeah, _Daredevil_ telling somebody to pick their fights--that was definitely a hypocritical thing to do. "And you need to be wise about it. Foggy and I are used to insults, and we can fight for ourselves."

"But you weren't there," Harry protested. "He was talking about how he couldn't believe you guys were let in, and that he thought you and Foggy were disgusting."

"You think we're disgusting," Matt remarked.

"Well, yeah!" Harry huffed, Brooklyn accent blurring into his voice. "But it's different 'cause you're my dads. I get to say it because you do it in front of me all the time, and you make the _weirdest_ sounds, but when somebody else says it they're not talking about the sounds or anything, they think it's just because you're two guys."

"I do not," Matt huffed.

"Yeah, buddy, you do," said Foggy.

"Sometimes people just suck, Harry," said Kirsten. "You know how many guys at the DA's office figured I was there just to be pretty?"

"I thought you said Matt and Foggy poached you," said Harry.

"Well, they did," conceded Kirsten, a hint of mischief in her tone, "but maybe some of it was because I wanted to be poached. Anyway, if I wasn't, I wouldn't have met Karen." She glanced at Karen, who grinned back, soft and full of love.

"But thanks anyway," said Foggy. "For the whole defending our honor thing."

Harry shrugged, as Matt stood. He hopped off the bench, his shoes softly thudding against the cobblestones. "You're family," he said, and Matt felt his heart grow a little lighter inside his chest. Sure, Stick would've minded, would've been unhappy about Harry's mere presence (he had been, in fact), but Matt had stopped listening to him years ago. And to hear Harry describe him and Foggy and Karen and even Kirsten as his family--well, it made him feel warm, inside. "Now can we get my books?"


	6. Flourish and Blotts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a note: this chapter's fairly short compared to the others, and I just want to let you all know I'll be slowing down the updates a bit! which is to say I'll be trying to stick to just uploading maybe two times a week to put some space between posting and writing.

Wanda met up with them again, and they split up to cover more ground in the bookstore: Flourish and Blotts, was the name. Foggy went looking for _Magical Theory_ and _A History of Magic_ , Wanda had volunteered for _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ , Karen had claimed _Magical Drafts and Potions_ , Kirsten took _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_ and _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ , and Matt and Harry were thus left to look for _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_ and _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_.

"You know," said Harry, somewhat absently, "you could probably write a better book than this Quentin Trimble guy. You go out every night to fight dark forces, after all."

"Somehow I don't think robbers and murderers are the kind of dark forces he's talking about," Matt dryly said.

Harry ran a finger over a book's spine, that read _Curses and Countercurses_ in gold, now silver, now bronze, the colors shifting before his eyes. It looked nice, but Harry couldn't really think of anyone, besides the boy whose nose he'd broken, that he wanted to curse. Maybe the criminals of Hell's Kitchen that Matt went out to beat up on every night.

Then someone said, in an impatient tone, "Hey, excuse me, but can you move?"

Harry turned, to find a young girl with long dark hair and eyes hidden behind purple sunglasses that she then lifted up, revealing dark eyes. She looked somewhat older, maybe thirteen or so instead of eleven. "Um?" he said.

"You're excused," said Matt, politely, a hand resting on Harry's back and steering him away from the shelves. "Miss--"

"Bishop," said the girl. "Kate Bishop. I'm going to be in Hogwarts--my dad's American, but my mom was magical and she stipulated I go there in her will if I manifested magic so." She shrugged. "Here I am. You guys know where I can find _The Dark Forces_?"

"We're still looking for it," said Harry. "I'm Harry. Nelson. Harry Nelson." It felt curiously freeing, to introduce himself by his real name instead of the name that everyone here seemed to know him by.

"Like Nelson & Murdock?" said Kate. She looked up at Matt and said, "You're Murdock, aren't you?"

"So they tell me," said Matt.

"My dad used to bitch about you all the time while I still lived with him," she bluntly said. "I think you're cool. Hey, Harry, want help looking for it?"

"I already have--" Harry started, then stopped, remembering a rather significant thing that would prevent Matt from helping. "Sure," he said.

"Great," said Kate, and she took Harry's hand and tugged him--and by extension, Matt--to where she claimed to have spied a flash of the book she wanted.

"So, um," said Harry, "I think I've heard about you? Foggy hates your dad a lot, says he wouldn't know accessibility if it bit him on the ass." He paused, then added, "Sorry."

"Eh, none taken, my dad's kind of an asshole," said Kate.

"He means Foggy hasn't let go of an old college grudge against the man," said Matt.

"Well, my dad probably hates him too," Kate said airily. "We tend to disagree on a lot of things, if you're wondering about me."

"Not really," lied Harry, who had not forgotten the pale, pointed boy and his broken nose. "You said your mom was magical?"

"Yeah, went to Hogwarts and everything," said Kate, stopping them in front of a bookcase. "There, I think," she said, pointing upwards at the top shelf, which was higher than any of them could reach on their own.

"Top shelf," Harry said to Matt. "It's kind of big. Like, paving stone big." He grabbed on to Matt's arms and said, "Carry me up?"

"Sure you can carry it?" said Matt.

"Let's find out," said Harry, and Matt sighed before lifting him up in the air and following his and Kate's directions ("A little to the left! No, too much left, to the right!" " _Pick a direction!_ "). Harry's fingers ran over the spines of the books, and some of the letters seemed to move. _Jinxes for the Prankster in You, 1001 Uses for Muggle Technology, You Will Die Tomorrow: How to Predict Your Future with Unerring Accuracy_ \--and there, _The Dark Forces_.

He pulled it out.

It fell to the ground, and Matt jumped back just in time, hugging Harry close to his chest and getting clear just before the book banged on the ground.

"Sorry," said Harry, sheepishly, as Matt set him down.

"Wow, you really need to work on your upper body strength," said Kate, picking up the book. "You see a chair around here?"

"Three o'clock, beside the vase with the dancing flowers," Matt murmured in Harry's ear. Harry craned his neck, and saw a vase with patterns that danced and moved across its surface, flowers that bobbed their heavy heads up and down as though they were dancing. Beside it was an ornate-looking chair.

"That one," said Harry, catching Kate's attention and pointing at the chair.

"You get the left side, I'll take the right," said Kate, and they took off to lift the chair up and carry it to the shelf.

The chair made a moaning noise.

Kate squeaked, but gripped on ever tighter.

Harry almost dropped it, only remembering not to let his grip slacken when he remembered just how heavy it was and how badly he'd need crutches.

"Need help with that?" said Matt.

The chair moaned again.

"Shut up," Kate hissed at the chair. "Uh--no, Mr. Murdock, I think we can handle this just fine--"

"Get your filthy mitts _off of me_ ," the chair snarled, and at that Matt stepped forward and took the chair from them. " _Muggle_!" it shrieked, but Matt was already setting it into place. Or, well, mostly into place.

"Could you push it to the right?" Kate asked. "Just an inch or two."

The chair scraped against the floor, and started snarling imprecations at Matt about his mother and doorknobs. Matt gave it a good kick to the leg, and said, unconvincingly, as the chair gave a pained groan, "Sorry, I'm blind, just don't know where to put my feet sometimes."

Harry turned his giggle into a theatrical cough.

Kate raised a brow, but shrugged and climbed on to the chair. It yelled more curses at her and Matt and Harry, and Kate stomped down on its cushion and said, "Shut up, you're a chair, you're made for sitting on."

"You are _standing_ on me!"

"I need a book," said Kate. "Now shut up or I'll stomp harder."

\--

When Foggy rounded the corner, having found the books he'd volunteered for and discreetly snuck another one onto the pile (no matter what anyone said, in his learned opinion, everyone needed at least _one_ Discworld book in their lives), he found Harry and Kate with their books in their arms, and Matt behind them with his cane in hand.

"Made a friend?" Foggy asked him.

"Yeah!" said Harry, beaming proudly. When his face lit up like that, it made Foggy's heart feel warm. It was the sort of magic no one could duplicate, he figured, the love he had for this tiny little boy, placed all those years ago on the doorstep of Number Four Privet Drive. "Foggy, this is Kate. Kate, Foggy."

Kate lifted purple sunglasses up from her face. "Hi," she said. "My dad hates you, you know."

"Swell," said Foggy, with a tight smile.

"We're not on the best of terms," she said.

"Also swell," said Foggy, some of the tightness disappearing.

And that was when Wanda came around the corner, Harry's book clamped tightly under her armpit as she leafed through a book that had _Practical Uses for Magic in Combat_. She looked up and said, "I'm starting to like it here."

Kate dropped her books and said, " _Oh my god_."

"Hi, Wanda," said Harry. "This is Kate! Kate, this is Wanda."

"Oh my _god_ ," Kate repeated, then rounded on Matt and jabbed a finger into his chest. " _How!_ " she shouted. "How did you--That's the _Scarlet Witch_!"

"A good chunk of the superhero community of New York has us on retainer," said Matt, quite casually. "I defended Wanda once. She promised to help when I asked. When Harry started manifesting abilities, we called her in to help."

" _The Scarlet Witch_!" Kate half-shrieked. "You're telling me an actual Avenger taught you?"

"I am right here, you know," Wanda said, mildly.

"Do you know any other Avengers personally?" Kate asked Harry, rounding on him. "Like, say, Hawkeye? Is _Captain America_ going to waltz around the corner?" Her eyes looked a little wild, which Harry supposed was to be expected, given how famous the Avengers were. It wasn't everyday you bumped into one on the streets.

All right, in New York, that was more than possible, he'd bumped into a few of Wanda's fellow Avengers when they went out and bought pizza or ice cream, but anywhere else? Ha.

"Hawkeye got us here," said Foggy, before Harry could answer. "But he and the Black Widow are busy doing some secretive spy things somewhere else in London." He waved a hand. "They'll probably get back once we do."

\--

Somewhere in London, a grate came crashing down. Seconds later, Natasha dropped, landing on her feet like a cat. She looked up, then backed up.

Thirty seconds later, Clint managed to fall on his back and cursed when he felt the bars of the grate digging into his flesh. "You sure they're keeping that Red Room tech here?" he asked, getting to his feet.

Natasha shook her head. "Not really, but it's the best lead we have." She fiddled with the Widow's Bites on her wrists, and the dark corridor was lit with a soft blue glow before it faded as she took them off. "Yelena should be around here somewhere."

Clint didn't say, _you know you can't save her, right?_ That, he figured, would be hypocrisy of the highest order, coming from him and directed to her. Natasha wanted to find this new Black Widow agent, convince her that the name was not all it was cracked up to be and that she was better off with a life her own instead of trying to find some purpose from others, but Clint--well, he wasn't too inclined towards Yelena, just then.

The girl had tried to get to Natasha through him just three months ago. He wasn't too keen on doing the noble thing and giving her a chance right now, but. Well. He wasn't going to rob Natasha of that chance either.

She had explained it to him, was the thing. She needed to try, to put her past behind her one way or another. Finding Yelena was a part of it--she'd incurred a debt against her once, against all the Black Widow agents she left behind, and she was going to settle that debt somehow. "Hopefully she's in a good mood," Natasha had said, with a sardonic smile that said she kind of doubted it herself.

Finding the Red Room tech and keeping it out of the wrong hands was also a good chunk of it.

So here was Clint, as backup in case things went south. He did not doubt they would go south. They were Avengers, things always went south with them.

"I'm beginning to think I'm getting too old," said Clint, contemplatively.

"Yeah, you are, I can see your gray hairs," said Natasha, innocently.

"You're supposed to say I'm still a young, spry thing!" Clint complained, falling into step behind her as she walked down the corridor, wrapping the net-like mask over her face. He took the handcuffs out of his pockets and locked one into place around his wrist, then held out the other wrist for her to lock the other cuff around.

"I'm trying this new thing called honesty," said Natasha, tugging on a strawberry blonde wig over her short red hair. She touched a finger to her temple and smiled at Clint. "By the way, mind if I hit you?" she asked, as her face changed in front of his eyes. They'd borrowed the face from a HYDRA agent Bucky had found perched on the rooftop next to Clint's apartment two weeks ago, and as far as Clint knew, the real Ashley Leighton was having a rough time of it right now.

"Mind the nose," said Clint, and Natasha drew her fist back and slammed it into his cheek. "Ow! _Nat_!"

"That," Natasha informed him, "was for last week."

"I didn't know you hadn't seen the _Breaking Bad_ season finale, sheesh," Clint grumbled, rubbing at his cheek, and followed behind her as she led him down the corridor. "You gonna be okay if we don't find her?" he whispered. "Or if she doesn't want to listen?"

Natasha was silent for a time, before she said, "I will be. But I need to try to convince her--she wants to be a legend." Her eyes flicked back to him, and Clint saw an old, old soul behind them. "She has to know legends aren't made so cheap."


	7. A Spider's Thread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings:** discussions of brainwashing and implications of forced drug addiction. HYDRA is not a nice organization.
> 
> I'm so sorry to Cindy Moon for how she gets her powers in this continuity.

Hagrid joined up with them after they visited the Apothecary--minus Matt, who stood well away from it while looking vaguely ill. Kirsten had patted him on the back and told him to take a break, maybe parkour around a little and beat up on some criminals, and Harry had laughed at that and Matt's automatic and long-suffering "I'm not Daredevil, Kirsten," before entering the Apothecary, coming out with a bag full of basic potion ingredients and some less basic ones.

"I'm so glad you didn't go in there, man," Foggy said to Matt, after they reemerged and Hagrid had come over, far less wobbly than he was. "There was a jar full of eyeballs. They _twitched_ , I swear to you they _did_."

"I'll take your word for it," Matt said, dry as dust.

They checked Harry's list again, and Kate's as well--she'd gotten most of her things by now, and all that was left for both of them was--

"Wands," said Hagrid. "But--ah, yeah, still haven't got your birthday present yet."

"You really don't have to," Harry said. "I mean, this is enough. For like a _hundred_ birthdays."

"You said that last year," said Kirsten.

"I mean it this time!"

"I know I don't have to," Hagrid said, tucking the list away. "Tell yeh what. I'll get yer animal."

"Hope it's not a cat," said Karen, "I'm allergic to those."

"Oh, boy, we're going to have to renegotiate the lease," Foggy muttered. "You deal with Morris this time, Matt. He likes you better than he likes me."

"Yeah, they make me sneeze too," said Hagrid, leading the little group away from the Apothecary. "No cats, miss, promise. No toads either, they're out of fashion these days."

"Toads," said Kate, incredulous.

"How does an owl sound to you?" Hagrid asked Harry. "They're dead useful, carry yer mail and everythin'."

"Oh god," said Foggy, remembering the Bartons' evil barn owl and shuddering beside Matt, who chuckled when he felt it.

"Really?" said Harry, interested now.

Karen exchanged a look with Foggy that read, _I'm not cleaning up the inevitable bird shit in the office._

\--

Twenty minutes later, Harry emerged from Eeylops Owl Emporium with a snowy white owl, fast asleep in her cage, and said, "Her name's Hedwig," with deep and utter seriousness.

Then Kate emerged with a white cat that had a small, black spot on the top of its head in her arms and said, smugly, "This one's Daenerys."

\--

As Kate and Harry were picking out their animals, Natasha threw the doors open and said, "Mother Night. I have returned--with Hawkeye, as you requested." She nodded to Clint, who glared defiantly at her.

"Well, well," said Mother Night, rising from her throne. And it _was_ a throne--a spotlight from above shone on it, illuminating the ornate designs of HYDRA's tentacles wrapping around the world and squeezing, and the jewels embedded in its frame, the crescent moon gem shining at the very top. "I'm surprised you succeeded. To be honest, when Belova set the task upon you, I half-suspected you would fail."

"Then Belova was wrong," Natasha said.

"Not so wrong," Mother Night countered, the clack of her heels against stone ringing off the walls. Natasha kept her attention on her, trusting Clint's eyes to take in as much information as he could while she was occupied. "I see the Red Room agent is not with you."

"Told her to run," said Clint, all stupid bravado and faked overconfidence to get the enemy to underestimate him while his sharp eyes looked them over for any weaknesses. Natasha could kiss him, for playing his role so brilliantly. "Tell Steve. We're going to kick your ass, lady."

"Are you now," said Mother Night, drawing her hood back. Natasha wondered, for a moment, if it was possible for eyes to look so cold, like ice. Now that she was out of the spotlight, Mother Night seemed shadowy, her black robes hiding her, her wavy dark hair framing a pale, thin face. "You'll find that we are not so easy to defeat, these days. The Insight disaster depleted us, the Avengers even moreso, but we rebuild. We _learn_."

" _Bull_ shit," said Clint. "We did it before, we can do it again."

_Chocolates and Dog Cops DVDs_ , Natasha thought. Out loud she said, "What of Belova?"

"Your rivalry with the girl does not concern me, Leighton," said Mother Night. "Belova is fulfilling something for us. You would do well not to ask further." She gestured to a door, and said, "Dr. Zola, come meet our esteemed guest."

_Oh, shit._

"Which one?" came the computerized voice, and Natasha's eyes flicked to a doorway, where an android walked through.

It didn't look human. It was made of steel, gleaming silver in the sparse light, its movements jerky but quick, its limbs essentially robotic tentacles. Where a chest would've been was, instead, a screen encased in protective steel, and as Natasha watched in mounting horror the screen started to flicker until it displayed a computerized version of a face Bucky had once shown her ("here," he had said, venom in his voice, pointing at a little man with pince-nez glasses hidden in the back, "the rat-faced bastard, in the background").

"I see two," the thing that was Zola rumbled. "Welcome, Natalia Alianovna Romanova. How nice to see you."

"Ah, shit, we're blown," said Clint, dropping the stupid act.

"From the very second you stepped in here," said Mother Night, smiling pleasantly. "We learn, Agent Romanov. See how quickly we've learned our lessons?"

"Oh, how nice to see you too, Zola," Natasha said, dryly, deactivating the mask and peeling it off her skin, as Clint produced a lockpick from his jacket and started picking the lock on his cuffs. "Last time I saw you, you got blown up."

"I am not so foolish as to not back myself up, Agent," said Zola. "And not so dumb as to reveal myself over this past decade, as you, the Falcon and Captain America dismantled base after base."

"Hey, credit where it's due, Barnes did the work too," said Clint. "Or are you practicing selective amnesia? Because he blew up a lot of bases."

"The Winter Soldier as well," Zola acknowledged reluctantly.

"But do you know what we learned, over that time?" Mother Night asked, pleasantly. "We learned that extraordinary beings, such as they are, can only be defeated by things as extraordinary as they are. Baron Von Strucker, for all his faults, had the right idea on that one." She tilted her head, said, "What do you know of Inhumans?"

"Skye's one," said Clint, as the cuffs fell from his wrists, as he took his bow off his back.

"People descended from aliens who have dormant abilities that need to be awakened by a mist, yes, I know, I'm a SHIELD agent," said Natasha, a little irritated now. "You plan to use Inhumans against us, don't you?"

"And others," said Zola. "For example: it is amazing what one can do with radioactivity, these days. I have learned that Oscorp holds a great number of radioactive spiders in a room, along with a great number of eminently curious high school students interning at their building."

" _No_ ," Natasha breathed, the implications sinking in.

"Couple that," said Mother Night, "with some of our own special serum, and a strict regimen of drugs--well. Our very own attack dog." She was practically purring with delight. Natasha imagined strangling her. "Silk, be a dear and take care of these Avengers for us."

Natasha looked up.

There was a young girl with dark hair and wild eyes clinging to the ceiling. At the command, she dropped between her and Clint, and Natasha realized that her fingers had turned into claws, sharp enough to cut. And there, on her arms--track marks. Scars, like she had struggled.

Then the girl slashed at her.

\--

In New York, Gwen Stacy dangled upside-down from a thread of webbing. It had been a fairly slow day: just two muggers so far, both of whom had been delivered neatly to the precinct for Mahoney to arrest. She'd figured she could call it an early day, go straight home and crash onto something and catch up on her beauty sleep, maybe call Peter so he could take over her shift in Hell's Kitchen while Daredevil was with his kid in London, but life happened to have a way of interrupting her plans.

Case in point: Albert Moon, staring up at her.

"Hiya, Alby," said Gwen. "What's up? Besides me."

"Can you help me?" he asked.

"Well, sure, that's me," said Gwen, dropping down from the thread, twisting just so, and landing on her feet on the edge of the dumpster. "Miss Helpful. What do you need?"

"My sister Cindy," said Albert.

"Oh," said Gwen. She remembered Cindy--nervous girl, hockey player, had an internship at Oscorp to fill out her resume. She'd disappeared one day, a little after Spider-Man's first appearance, and most of her family, after that, had died in a sudden house fire. Albert had been the only one who survived, and the left side of his face was marked with burn scars. "Yeah. It's been a few years now."

"Six," said Albert. "Can you--Can you help me, Spider-Woman? Please?"

"Look, little man, I don't know if I could," Gwen admitted. "It's been six years. I don't know if your sister's in the city." _Or even if she's still alive_ , she didn't say.

Albert shook his head. "No, she wouldn't be," he said, tiredly. "I just--I need to know. If she's still alive. Or where her body is, if not. Could you at least promise to keep an eye out?"

"I can do that," said Gwen, and saw the cautious hope flickering across his face. "Hey--keep your nose clean, 'kay, Alby?"

"You're not my mom, Spider-Woman," Albert huffed, but he smiled. "Keep safe."

"I'm always safe!" Gwen called after him, as he turned and walked out of the alleyway. "I'm a superhero!"

_And I'll find your sister, if there's anything left of her_ , she didn't say. But oh, she thought it.

\--

Clint was not having a good day.

The girl--Silk, she was called--was clearly amped up on something, but he wasn't sure what. Whatever it was, it made her attacks violent, indiscriminate, and seriously painful. She'd managed to scratch him on the face and had thrown Natasha off when she climbed onto her, so it was also safe to assume that she was nearly as strong as Steve.

Bucky had held back whenever he sparred with somebody. At the time Tony had huffed and puffed about how he could take it in the suit, until eventually Bucky punched him in the groin while Tony was in the suit with his metal arm by accident during a pitched battle, and _that_ had shut Tony up about that. Still, Clint had never actually seen him really let loose. Too afraid of hurting someone he considered a friend, he'd explained.

This was the closest thing that Clint would ever come to knowing what it was like to be punched by either Bucky or Steve, because Silk punched like a goddamn freight train. He was sure going to look very pretty when he came back home, that was certain.

Natasha came at her, stun batons flying into her hands from the sleeves of her suit and buzzing with electricity. The girl ducked, fast, and slashed upward, claws cutting into Natasha's arm.

They needed to end this. Somehow.

Then an idea clicked into his head, and he dodged another slash and backed away, before turning, running up the stairs, and clambering onto the throne.

"Nat!" Clint yelled, taking up his position. "Remember Tokyo?"

"I hated Tokyo!" Natasha said, still trading blows with Silk.

"That thing we did with the Yakuza guy--"

"On it!" Natasha ducked, sending an elbow strike into the girl's stomach as Clint nocked an electric arrow. Silk doubled over in pain, and Clint sent the arrow flying.

The girl screamed, an animalistic screech, and then slumped over, unconscious, at Natasha's feet.

" _Fuck_ ," said Natasha, looking around. Mother Night and Dr. Zola had gone, and when they rushed to the room where Zola had emerged from, they found nothing but wires and HYDRA's symbol spray-painted onto the wall. The Red Room tech they had come for had been here, all right, Clint could still see traces here and there, but the tech itself was gone. "They got away with the tech," Natasha said, frustration seeping into her tone. "And Yelena's nowhere near here."

"Forget Yelena," said Clint, looking back at the girl, still unconscious. "We gotta deal with this kid."


	8. Ollivander's

When Harry and Kate stepped into Ollivander's, it was not only Hagrid who accompanied them, but Matt, Foggy, Karen, Kirsten and Wanda, the last with a cat winding around her legs and purring as she hugged a caged owl.

It went without saying that the shop seemed a little more crowded than usual, much to Matt's consternation--he was not very good in small, crowded spaces, and this was a small, crowded space in a strange country that had a thousand different smells, most of them wood, and all of them with a hint of an ozone scent.

Harry, however, looked around in wonder, clearly about to ask a hundred different questions before swallowing them all back. There was nothing moving here that was usually inanimate, yet even the very air of this dusty shop seemed to tingle with magic, with something old and secret just beckoning him to come closer.

"Good afternoon," said a soft voice.

Karen let out a high-pitched " _eep_ " and grabbed on to Kirsten, Foggy made a strangled noise and grabbed on to Matt, Hagrid--who had settled into a small, spindly chair that creaked under his weight--jumped and nearly broke the chair, Wanda cut herself off in the middle of a curse, and Kate said, "Oh, come _on_."

An old man emerged from the gloom of the shop and stood before them, pale eyes shining like twin moons. Something about him made Harry think, strangely enough, of Dr. Strange.

"Hi," he said, a little off his guard.

"Ah, yes," said the man. "Yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." He said it with certainty, and god, was Harry beginning to really hate being famous.

"Wait, back up a sec," said Kate, before she turned to look at Harry. "You said your last name was _Nelson_ ," she hissed in his ear.

"It _is_ Nelson," Harry said. "Harry Potter's just--that's what everybody here knows me as. But it's Nelson. Harry _Nelson_." And Harry Nelson wasn't famous, had never known fame. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I just--I got really sick of it."

Matt put a reassuring hand on his back. "We're here for his wand," he said.

"And mine," said Kate.

"And Kate's," said Foggy.

The man nodded to Kate. "Kate Bishop," he said, and that too was not a question. "I remember the day your mother came for her wand. Twelve inches, springy, acacia. One of the most accurate duelers in her class." He turned to Harry, and said, "I remember your mother's first wand as well. Swishy, made of willow, ten and a quarter inches long. Good for charm work."

Foggy said what Harry was thinking: "Creepy. _Ow,_ Karen!"

Karen had shoved a sharp elbow into his ribcage.

"Please don't mind Foggy, he shoves his foot in his mouth a lot," she said, plastering on a polite smile.

Ollivander shrugged, and said, "I've heard far worse from others, miss. A mere slip of the tongue is nothing. And, for your guardian's benefit, I just shrugged." He looked at Harry again, with those eyes like silver moons, and Harry felt that creeping feeling again. "Your father, on the other hand, chose a mahogany wand--eleven inches and pliable. A little more power, excellent for transfiguration work."

"So you remember every wand you sell?" Kirsten asked. "That's--well, I do have to agree with Foggy, it's a bit--unsettling, let's say," and Harry was very slightly relieved for the more tactful way she said it, "but it is impressive as well."

"Yes, like it was yesterday," said Ollivander. "Well, I say he chose the wand--but in truth, it is the other way around. The wand chooses the wizard."

He came close--very close--to Harry, and knelt down a little, so that they were almost nose to nose. Matt and Foggy inched closer to Harry, but the older wizard seemed to pay them no mind.

Then he said, "May I see?"

Harry breathed out, then, with a shaking hand, held his bangs back to display the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. Ollivander seemed to study it with his eyes, and Kate, thus treated to the sight, let out a soft gasp.

"I'm sorry to say," he said, regretful, "that I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen and a half inches, yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands, capable of terrible things. Believe me, if I had known what it would do..."

"We don't tend to know things in advance," Matt said, so sudden that Ollivander's eyes ticked up and away from Harry for a moment to settle on Matt. "There's a saying: hindsight's 20/20. What seems obvious after the fact usually isn't." And he smiled.

Foggy elbowed him. "Did you seriously make a sight joke?" he hissed.

"For a blind man, you're rather insightful," Ollivander remarked, and smiled.

Kirsten choked. "Oh my god, there's two of them," she said, as Karen dropped her face into her hands and groaned.

Wanda, who had been silent thus far, said, with a wicked grin, "I'm sure neither of you saw this coming."

"Three," said Kirsten, with a heavy tone. "Oh, god."

Then Ollivander stood and looked at Hagrid. He was not a tall man, not much taller than Harry, but in comparison to Hagrid, he looked positively tiny and fragile. Only--Hagrid fidgeted when Ollivander looked at him.

"Rubeus Hagrid! What a surprise," said Ollivander. "It's nice to see you again--oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it? Good wand, that."

"It was, sir, a good wand," Hagrid agreed, with a note of sad nostalgia tinging his words. Harry wanted nothing more than to hug him just then.

"I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled, then?" Ollivander asked, and Hagrid looked down, a hand rubbing the handle of his umbrella.

"They did, sir," Hagrid said. "But I've got the pieces still."

"You're not using them, are you?" Ollivander asked levelly, a little sternly.

"No," said Hagrid, and gripped his umbrella's handle very tightly. (Matt heard his heartbeat race, heard the creak the handle made as his grip tightened, heard the pieces of wood rattling around inside, and knew it for a lie.

So that was where the smell of oak had been coming from.)

Ollivander only hummed, silver gaze still fixed on Hagrid, but then he looked back to Harry. "Well, now, Ms. Bishop, Mr. P--Nelson," he corrected himself in time. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Wand arms," said Ollivander, pulling out two long tape measures with silver markings.

"Um, I'm right-handed," said Harry.

"Also right-handed," said Kate.

"Hold them out," said Ollivander, and got around to measuring them not only from shoulder to arm, but from finger to wrist, elbow to shoulder, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit. All the while, he talked about Ollivander wands, and Harry glanced to find Foggy gaping at him a little.

Then he looked at the measuring tape, which was measuring him all by itself and was now checking the width of his nostrils.

He glanced at Kate, who was also staring at the measuring tape with a mix of awe and slight disgust, as it was currently measuring her nostrils as well.

He looked at the shelves, and saw Ollivander flitting in between them, taking down narrow boxes and carrying a few over to him and Kate.

"That will do," he said, and the tape measures fell to the floor, lifeless again. "Try this," he said to Kate, handing her a slightly wavy wand. "Walnut, eleven and three fourths, dragon heartstring."

Kate gave the wand a wave, but Ollivander shook his head and took it from her, replacing it just as fast with a "beech, ten inches, unicorn tail". It took her one more wand until she held, in her hands, a cedar wand, twelve and a half inches, with a dragon heartstring for a core. "A little springy," Ollivander told her.

Kate twirled the wand between her fingers. The pointy end trailed purple sparks. "I like it," she decided, and swished it upwards, watching as a jet of purple sparks exploded out from the tip.

"It's yours," Ollivander told her, then turned away again to pick out a box and take the wand out to give to Harry. "Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Give it a wave."

"I can think of some flexible things," Foggy whispered, glancing at Matt.

"Shut up," Karen hissed.

Harry let out a breath, then gave the wand a tentative wave. Nothing happened, and Ollivander shook his head, took the wand from him, and gave him another. And another. And another.

Wands started to pile up on the spindly, now slightly bent chair.

"Please don't touch the wands, sir," Ollivander said quite calmly at one point, and Harry turned to see Foggy sheepishly replacing a wand back on a pile.

The bigger the pile on the chair, though, the happier Ollivander seemed to become. "I haven't had a customer as tricky as you in years," he said, quite cheerfully. "We'll find the perfect combination, you need not worry--hmm, this might just work. It's an unusual combination, holly and phoenix feather--why not?"

The second Harry's fingers wrapped around the wand, he knew it was his. Warmth seemed to spark in his fingers, tingling like they were live wires, and he raised the wand slowly up to his head and watched the red and gold sparks trail from the tip like sparklers. Then he brought it down, swishing through the dusty air, and the sparks exploded forth from the tip and lit up the gloomy shop like Fourth of July fireworks.

The rush of joy when he saw it felt like--he didn't have a word for it, just yet, but later on in his life, he would describe that rush as one just like the one he felt when he was flying.

"Foggy!" he cried, turning around. "Did you see that? Matt! I wish you could've seen it, it looked like fireworks!"

"I saw that!" Foggy exclaimed, rushing forward to wrap Harry up in a hug that lifted him off the ground, and twirled him about before Foggy set him down again on solid ground. "Aw, look at you, a real actual wizard!"

Matt came forward too to hug him, drawing him in close and holding him tight. "I am so proud of you, Harry," he whispered, and in that moment Harry knew that even if Matt hadn't seen it, he had still, somehow, known. "I always will be."

"You're going to knock them dead when you get to your school," Karen whispered when she joined in. "Do that for me, okay?"

Kirsten joined in and said, "Be well when we see you off, Harry. Because we will. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Wanda set Hedwig's cage aside, stepped forward (avoiding Daenerys), and wrapped her arms around Harry as well, and whispered, "Remember what I taught you, all right?"

"I will," Harry promised, basking in the warmth of his family, and the whoops of joy from Hagrid, and the applause from Kate and Ollivander.

"Congratulations," Kate said, stepping forward and sticking out her hand after Harry's guardians had all broken away. "You're a wizard now."

"And you're a witch too," said Harry, taking her hand and shaking it.

"Curious, though, very curious," Ollivander commented, and Harry turned to him. He looked contemplative now, his pale eyes fixed on Harry again. It was, as Foggy said, a little creepy, for all that the man was kindly, if a bit fussy about his wands.

He took their wands back, wrapped them in brown paper and put them back inside their boxes, still murmuring, "Curious...very curious..."

"What's curious?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Your guardian was right, when she said I remember every wand I have ever sold," said Ollivander, turning to look at him. "It just so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand is in one other--just one other." He held Harry's gaze with his pale eyes, like silver moons, and said, "It is indeed curious, that you should be destined for that wand when its brother--why, its brother gave you that scar."

\--

"I don't think I like him very much," said Foggy, as they exited the shop. "You got that creepy vibe off him too, right, Matt?"

"He was telling the truth," Matt said, his voice a little lower. "His heartbeat never changed."

"Still creepy, though," Foggy said.

Harry was not listening to them, instead turning the words over and over in his mind. _We must expect great things from you, Mr. Nelson_ , Ollivander had said, but the truth was--Harry wasn't sure he could handle the weight of those expectations. He was eleven, great things were the last thing on his mind just two weeks ago and now--now this.

"We still got time fer a bite ter eat," Hagrid suggested, as they stepped out of Diagon Alley, laden with bags, an owl in Harry's hands. The Leaky Cauldron was empty, and the sun was hanging low in the sky. It was a late afternoon.

"Can we?" said Kate. "I'm starving, and I know a good ice cream place."

And thus it was, that all eight of them--the witch and the wizard, the Avenger, the lawyers, the secretary, the giant groundskeeper--crammed themselves into a corner booth in an ice cream shop in London, trading gossip and stories while stuffing themselves full of chocolate and vanilla and sprinkles.

Harry, however, was quiet, and looked out the window at the people passing them by. Everything looked so strange now, as though they were washed out and dulled, a muddied picture compared to the vibrancy he'd just experienced. He felt like a stranger in his own skin, magic thrumming in his veins, sparking through his fingers.

He felt like a coin, with two sides. Here was Harry Nelson, who ate ice cream and snuck out of his bedroom to watch cable TV even though Foggy and Matt didn't allow him and sometimes fell asleep on Foggy's lap, who was loved and cared for and loved and cared for people back, who was really nothing special despite the occasional wild burst of magic.

And here was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the person everyone in the Wizarding World seemed to see when they looked at him, the one-year-old infant who'd somehow defeated the most evil wizard they had ever known, perhaps the savior of them all.

Flip the coin, and who did you get?

"You all right?" Matt murmured.

"I just had the best birthday of my life, so I guess I am," said Harry, plastering on a grin.

"You're quiet," said Matt. "And you breathe in when you want to say something different from what you actually say. You're doing it now, in fact."

Harry let out a breath, and the grin fell away.

"I'm nothing special," he said, "but everyone thinks I am. You heard those people in the Cauldron, you heard Hagrid, you heard Ollivander, you heard everyone. I'm--I'm famous. For something I can't even remember _doing_." He felt tears pricking his eyes, and knuckled at them, trying to rub them away. This was his birthday, damn it, this was the best birthday he ever had, he didn't want to ruin it by crying. "I don't even know the first thing about this world, how could they expect great things from me?"

Hagrid pulled his hand away from his face, his big hand warm against Harry's. Somewhere beneath the black beard, the coarse eyebrows, the wild hair, Harry could see the kind smile.

"Don' you worry, Harry, you'll learn fast enough," he said, roughly. "Everyone starts at the beginnin' somewhere, you'll be just fine. Just be yerself."

"Buddy, I don't care if you do great things or not," said Foggy, placing a hand over Hagrid's, "you're you. That's great enough for me, and if anybody else says otherwise, give 'em hell."

"You should've seen the practice when we were just starting out," said Karen, with a laugh. "We needed to bribe cops with cigars to get cases. I mean, we still do, but not as often as we used to." She placed her hand over Foggy's and said, "We all start out not knowing a thing, Harry. Then we learn."

"They don't know you, but we do," said Kirsten, a hand settling over Karen's. "Whoever you are, whatever you do, whether it's something great or just something like passing a class--which, trust me, will be great in itself soon enough--that's never going to change. And I'm glad to know you."

Matt put a hand on Harry's wrist. Harry wondered whether this was a part of the act he put on, or whether Matt wanted to reassure himself as well. "Foggy and I had no clue what we were doing with you either," he said.

"I turned out well, though," said Harry, his voice shaky.

"Yeah, you did," said Matt, smiling sadly. "We like to think so. You'll be okay." _I hope_ , went unsaid.

Wanda placed a hand over Kirsten's and said, "Do you remember when you were five, and you broke your fathers' coffee table, and you were crying?"

" _Wanda!_ " Harry huffed.

"Wait, you did?" Kate asked.

"He did," Wanda confirmed, with a grin. "He could hardly control his powers at the time, so Matt asked me to come and help. What I did was bring him to headquarters, put lots of breakable things in his range, and show him some of my own tricks in keeping my abilities from running wild." She wiggled her fingers, and red energy twirled and danced in and around them. "His finer control got better over the years, but there were still some mishaps. Like the time you turned your babysitter's hair pink."

"Please stop," Harry pleaded, mortified.

"Only joking," Wanda said, the energy fizzing out. "When I met you, you broke a coffee table. Now you are my best student--"

"I'm your _only_ student--"

"--my _best_ student," Wanda repeated, "and I have taught you all that I know. Which, I will admit, is a rudimentary knowledge. My point is the same point as everyone else's: everyone starts somewhere. Even the greatest of us had to begin somewhere too."

"They'll expect me to already know a bunch of stuff, though," Harry said.

"Nah," said Hagrid, casually. "Yeh wouldn't be the only one comin' from a Muggle family, Harry. There's plenty of wizards with at least one Muggle parent at Hogwarts, you'll be fine."

Harry knuckled his tears away with a free hand, and smiled. "Yeah," he said, "I guess I will be."


	9. After Diagon Alley

Hagrid left them with a train ticket for Harry ("First o'September, King's Cross, if yeh run into any trouble, send your owl to me, she'll know where to find me") and his distinctive scent lingering on their clothes.

"So," said Kate, as they stood at the doors of the hotel where Clint and Natasha had essentially dumped Harry, Wanda, and the law firm of Nelson & Murdock, "I guess I'll see you at King's Cross?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "Sorry I didn't tell you. About being wizard famous. Believe me, I'm still getting used to it too."

"I noticed," said Kate, dry as the Sahara desert. Then she smiled, honest and warm. "Some advice from someone who's had her every action scrutinized by the tabloids since she was three: don't let them get to you. There's always going to be someone judging you first thing even before you meet--but they don't know you. You know you, that's what matters."

"Thanks," said Harry, smiling back. "Hey--you got any place to stay?"

Kate shrugged. "I'm not exactly raring to go back _home_ , if that's what you're asking, and my phone's been on the fritz since we went into Diagon Alley, so I have no idea how I'll call my roommate to pick me up," she said. "Why?"

"You wanna meet Hawkeye and Black Widow?"

Kate stared at him in utter awe, then grinned. "You, little man," she declared, "are _awesome_."

"Hey, Harry!" yelled Foggy, from the lobby. "Get in here already!"

Harry held his hand out for Kate to take, said, "Shall we, Kate Bishop?"

"We shall, Harry Nelson," said Kate, affecting pompous regality as she took his hand with a grin.

\--

"This," said Kate, about ten minutes later after Harry brought her along to the hotel room he'd woken up in, "is not what I was expecting to find."

_This_ was Natasha Romanov, with a bandage that had a very visible bloodstain on it wrapped around her forearm, and Clint Barton, with a purplish bruise on his cheekbone, watching _Dog Cops_ with a young girl who was trembling and wearing a very visibly oversized sweater and what Harry was pretty sure was a pair of Natasha's spare yoga pants, and also handcuffs.

Natasha gave a lazy wave. "Hi, guys," she said. "You're just in time--the sergeant's about to expose the corrupt captain."

Kirsten made a strangled noise, and said, "Wait, the captain's crooked? I thought it was the superintendent!" She paused, and then pointed at the girl and said, "And who's this?"

"Why," started Foggy, "is there a girl in handcuffs on the couch? Because I can think of _so many laws_ that violates."

"She scratched us while we were bringing her up here," said Clint. "Wait."

"She's a rescue," said Natasha, pulling herself up on the couch and looking at the girl. "The handcuffs are to keep her from trying to murder us. Sit down, make yourselves some snacks. Who's the new girl, by the way?"

Kate gaped at them for a moment, and then blinked, the question seeming to register in her brain. "Kate," she said. "I'm Kate. What--What's going on here?"

"Short version is," said Clint, "something went very wrong on our mission."

"You might want to send the kids out for this," said Natasha.

\--

Foggy ushered Harry and Kate out of the room, told them to go enjoy themselves at the buffet downstairs, and locked the door.

Karen made coffee--six cups, in fact, setting aside an entire pot for Clint to drink straight out of. None of them touched their mugs at all as Clint (who was sipping from his pot) and Natasha explained how they'd infiltrated a low-security building in order to find someone that Natasha owed a debt to and keep some technology from the Red Room from doing more damage than it had already wrought, and instead found one of the higher-ups in HYDRA, who called herself Mother Night, and the now-robotic Dr. Zola, who left them to deal with the girl.

Kirsten watched her, saw the fidgeting, the anxious glances, the way she curled her knees up to her chest and seemed to shrink into herself. She had a feeling Clint and Natasha were heavily editing out what they thought had happened to the girl, just in case the kids were listening in anyway.

But she had talked to enough addicts, both as part of the DA's office and as part of Nelson & Murdock, to know that this girl, who looked frail and terrified like an abused and cornered animal, was likely to go into withdrawal soon enough.

She felt sick to her core, that someone would do that to someone else--take their free will, their agency, their personhood, and turn them into an attack dog to set on others. And to top that off, apparently they'd kept her on a leash. If you could call forcibly addicting someone that, anyway.

"They called her Silk," said Natasha. "We have reason to believe that Zola's been using her--and maybe others--along with technology from the Red Room in his experiments to either recreate or maybe even surpass the Winter Soldier." A corner of her lip quirked up in a humorless half-smile. "Extraordinary beings can only be defeated by extraordinary beings," she recited, as though quoting someone.

"Jesus," said Foggy, quiet and horrified.

Wanda swore something in harsh-sounding syllables.

"Those bastards," Karen hissed.

Matt didn't say a word. But his hands were tightening around his cane, enough that his knuckles had turned white.

"Were there any files left about her? Or about whatever you came to find?" Kirsten asked.

Natasha shook her head. "Nothing. Nada." She wiggled her fingers and said, "They wiped any trace they were ever there off the records. Not even a hint that the front they used ever existed."

"There's got to be something," Karen argued. "There has to be some evidence of existence floating around out there, a--a piece of paper, a witness, something, _anything_. I mean, we've already got Silk. She's evidence enough--sorry."

"She's not talking," said Clint.

"Considering what she's gone through, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't talk about it if I were in her position either," said Kirsten.

"No," said Clint, "she's not talking at _all_."

"That complicates things," said Foggy.

Wanda let out a breath. "I can help her with that," she said. "But it will not be easy."

Natasha shook her head. "No," she said, voice heavy with experience. And she would know, Kirsten realized, she had first-hand experience with being on the receiving end. "No offense, Wanda, but her head's been fucked with enough. She needs to recover on her own."

"That would be harder," Wanda dryly remarked.

"When is anything easy to get?" Natasha said.

Silk was silent still, staring straight ahead as though she wasn't listening to anything. On occasion she tugged on a tangled clump of dark hair and picked at the yoga pants with her cuffed hands, and her eyes seemed to never settle on anything for long, darting from the door to the TV to the now-cold coffee.

Then she locked eyes with Kirsten.

"Uh, hi," said Kirsten.

Silk's eyes widened, and she curled in on herself. Kirsten felt her heart break for the girl all the more.

"We're not gonna hurt you, see?" She leaned forward, tried a reassuring smile, and held her hands up for Silk to see. "No weapons. You're--You're safe. Nobody's going to hurt you again, I promise."

The girl shook her head, wide eyes fearful.

Natasha said, "Mission report."

"She's not a--" Kirsten started.

"Failed," said Silk, her voice hoarse from disuse.

Foggy said, surprised, "Wait--she _talked_."

"Because I acted as her handler," said Natasha, with a heavy tone. "Barnes was the same way, though you wouldn't know it to look at him now."

Kirsten had met Bucky Barnes. He'd been a flirty guy who pretended he didn't know how to work a toaster (and had really not known how to work the coffeemaker Tony Stark had presented to Nelson & Murdock), and she'd marveled at how much he'd changed from the shadowed, gaunt prisoner of war she had seen on her television, the day of the Winter Soldier's trial. But it was an echo of that shadow she saw now in this girl.

"We're going to take them down," someone said, and Kirsten realized that it had been her. "We're going to find her family, if she has any left, and keep her out of jail, and anyone else that they might have taken and hurt the same way, and when we're done with that, we're going after these guys and tearing them down."

"I haven't heard you this mad since the Lilac Killer," said Karen, after a stunned silence.

"I agree with Kirsten," said Foggy. "But we're gonna need a lot more than a traumatized kid if we're gonna bring them down--either of you know a really good therapist, by the way?"

"Milla Donovan," Natasha promptly answered.

Foggy said, "Wait--Milla Donovan? Milla 'Matt's Hot Girl in Psych' Donovan?"

"How would I know if she was hot?" Matt dryly said.

"You just do!" Foggy huffed. "Wait, how do you guys know her?"

"She's Barnes's current therapist," said Natasha, casually. "He likes her. He hasn't brought quite as many weapons to their sessions."

"She was nice," Foggy said, nostalgic.

"Do you know where else HYDRA's based?" Karen asked. "Maybe there's something in one of those bases about Silk, about these--experiments that they're performing on people. We can use that."

"We've been looking," said Natasha, "but they're quick learners. After Steve and Barnes burned them out of America, they went underground everywhere else. Paper trails got torched, agents disappeared, anything electronic got wiped in record time--we can blame Zola for that last part." She ran a hand through her hair. "Even the witnesses can't remember a thing, for some reason. I'm not just talking about the people they brainwashed, I'm talking about people who must've at least seen them using those buildings, seen them going in and out. Not one of them remembers there was even a building there, it's like--"

"Like their eyes just skipped right over it," said Kirsten, sitting straight up.

"Like the Leaky Cauldron," said Wanda, nearly at the same time.

There was a small, familiar gasp, just outside. Kirsten twisted in her seat, peering over the back of her chair. "Harry," she said, "is that you?"

"No, that was Kate," said Matt, his voice a little lower than usual. "Harry's with her, though."

"Oh," said Foggy, " _hell_."

\--

It had been Kate's idea to sneak back.

"Look," she said, once they'd rounded the corner, "whatever's going on in there, clearly it's got something to do with the girl. I want to know what's up with her, and why she was in handcuffs. Don't tell me you don't."

Harry had considered that for a moment. He wasn't very hungry right now, the ice cream took care of that, and besides, the buffet downstairs didn't have anything he liked when he last checked, so he said, "Okay, sure. But be quiet about it."

And so they snuck back on their tiptoes, occasionally pressing their backs flat against the wall and sneaking past bellboys humming tunelessly to themselves. They pressed their ears to the door, and Harry heard Clint saying, "So Dr. Zola blew our covers-- _bam_ , just like that, rat-faced bastard--"

"Wait," whispered Kate, "wasn't Dr. Zola the guy Captain America took captive? What happened to him?"

"I think he experimented on Bucky and made him into the Winter Soldier," said Harry, racking his brain to try and remember what he'd been told in history class and in sessions with Wanda. "And then after Captain America went down into the ice, he got recruited by the government, and he started rebuilding HYDRA in SHIELD and everything."

"I know that, it was part of my history class," Kate said. "He died, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but Natasha says he uploaded himself into a computer before that," Harry said. He didn't mention that he'd eavesdropped once on a conversation between Natasha and Bucky, and that he also knew that they shot each other once. "But then he got blown up. I guess he didn't get blown up after all, or if he did he had a backup."

"Some people just can't stay dead," Kate muttered.

"Shh," Harry whispered. Could Matt hear him? He'd mentioned focusing his senses on someone and blocking out everything else, but that didn't mean Matt couldn't hear him and Kate just outside. And Wanda--could she tell, somehow? Could she sense their presence outside in a different way from how Matt might be able to sense them? He was probably in a huge amount of trouble already, just listening in to this conversation.

But the look in the girl's eyes haunted him, and he needed to know what had happened to her, so he could find some way to help.

It occurred to him that he probably didn't have any way to help, as he had just turned eleven and was hardly in any position to assist anything, but--well, he dismissed that thought immediately. He'd find a way.

Then Kirsten said, "Like their eyes just skipped right over it," just as Wanda said, "Like the Leaky Cauldron," and at the mention of the Leaky Cauldron Kate let a small, audible gasp slip.

"Oh, crap," Harry muttered, hearing Kirsten calling his name, then the sound of footsteps marching towards the door, and suddenly he and Kate fell forward onto the carpet when Foggy flung the door open.

"Um," said Kate. "Wow. So that was a _really_ delicious buffet, right, Harry?"

"How long were you two there?" Foggy asked.

"Uh," said Harry. "A little bit?"

"Define _a little bit_ ," said Kirsten, standing up and crossing her arms.

"Let me rephrase that," said Natasha, getting to her feet, her movements smooth and graceful. "Did you hear about Dr. Zola and Mother Night?"

Kate stewed in sullen silence, and Harry, knowing that Matt would be able to tell he was lying anyway, said reluctantly, "I did."

"You two still have a long way to go before anyone would take you on as spies," Clint said, propping himself up as Kate elbowed Harry's side. "Hey, girly-girl, should you really be eavesdropping on grown-up conversations?"

"I'm grown up!" Kate hotly protested. "Okay, I'm thirteen, but I'm legally emancipated! And don't call me _girly-girl_ , it's Kate!" She whirled on Wanda, and said, "So what's this about the Leaky Cauldron?"

"There's nothing about the Leaky Cauldron," said Wanda, "save the fact that out of all of us, only Matt and I saw it without Hagrid pointing it out. And Matt's a blind man." She did not mention that Matt had enhanced senses that would allow him to tell it was there, and instead glanced at Natasha, and said, "And now this, about entire buildings going unnoticed by far too many people to be natural. It's suspicious, to say the least."

"You think wizards had something to do with it?" asked Harry.

"I think," Matt said, "that not everyone uses the power they've been given in a responsible manner. It could be a wizard, but we don't know enough about magic yet."

Natasha said, "Yelena did." She smiled, a dark, humorless smile. "She was a witch. The Red Room used her when they needed magical assistance with a job. She didn't get much to do very often, though, mostly casting charms to keep people from seeing us, but she was no less formidable for it." She stuffed her hands into her pockets. "I owe her a debt," she said, simply. "A big one."

"Okay, so maybe this Yelena person has something to do with it," said Karen. "So, we track her down. You said you were tracking her, right?"

"The building we found was her last-known location, yes," said Natasha, "but her trail ends there. And I've told you about how spectacular the results were and what--or rather, _who_ \--we got out of it." She gestured to the girl, who watched Harry like she wasn't sure what to make of him, like he was a threat, but she wasn't sure how much of one he was. Kate, the girl seemed to scrutinize briefly before flicking her gaze back to the open door. "If I had to make a guess, though? She's on a job."

\--

Dusk fell. Shops throughout Diagon Alley turned their signs--some by hand, most with a flick of the wand--from OPEN to CLOSED. Cats strolled about, leaping into trash cans near the food shops for their smelly dinner, and on occasion, meowed to other cats about their days.

All the ambient magic hanging around Diagon Alley made cats very intelligent. They couldn't talk--not in a human language, anyway, and if you could understand cats and were to ask them why, they'd cite being lazy and not wanting to twist their tongues around human words--but they could write, and they could tell when someone was not, in fact, a cat.

It was cute, how some of these witches and wizards took on the forms of cats. The real cats figured that imitation was the best form of flattery, and thus, let them be.

One of those witches was now munching, alone, on a bit of fish a real cat had left for her. To the naked eye, she looked like a black-and-white stray, her entire underside a snow-white hue and the top side a pitch-black color. She finished off the fish, then leapt up onto a trash can, and proceeded to ascend until she'd reached the rooftop of the little building.

When she landed on the rooftop, it was with human feet that made no noise.

Gringotts had a reputation for being impossible to break into. That was fine, Yelena wasn't looking to break into Gringotts tonight anyway.

Gringotts staff, on the other hand, were not impossible to abduct and break under torture. And though it would be a cold day in hell before goblins coughed things up, wizards were only human, and thus wholly breakable.

Yelena waited, and watched.

A man stepped out of the bank's back doors--one of those on maintenance, she was sure. Good, maintenance men heard quite a bit, while cleaning. Her knife flicked into her hand, and she jumped, springing off the rooftop and landing just behind him, dodging the spell he flung out as he turned and kicking his leg out from under him, hearing a crack as he went down.

"Scream," she whispered, pressing a knife to his throat and her hand over his mouth, "and it'll be the last thing you ever do."

The man nodded, whimpering.

"Are we clear on that?" she asked.

Another nod.

"Now," she said, "you're going to answer my questions. If you're lying, I will know, and I will be displeased with you. Believe me, you don't want that." She pressed the knife just deep enough to leave a thin trail of blood. "Tell me," she said, "about Vault 713. Tell me everything you know. And I mean _everything_."


	10. The Turning of Seasons

Harry was grounded for a week, when they got back to New York. Kate had hugged him goodbye before then--she'd found a place to stay with a friend in Britain, she had explained to him, and she found it more convenient to stay in Britain until the first of September. But they'd exchanged numbers and Skype usernames, and promised to chat at the soonest opportunity, which was once Harry was no longer grounded.

On the Sunday after his grounding was lifted, he accompanied Matt to his church, and waited in the pews as Matt confessed to the priest. He swung his legs restlessly, looked up at the bloody crucifix that looked down on the people that came inside: for Mass, for confession, for a place to rest.

Matt came out of the confession booth looking a little bit lighter, and Harry nodded respectfully to Father Lanthom as he hopped off the bench, taking Matt's hand.

When they left, Harry said, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," said Matt. "Why?"

"You've got a split lip," said Harry.

"Mugger," said Matt. Harry pulled a face--there were a lot of those around. At least it wasn't Electro or the Sandman or somebody who had superpowers, he supposed. Matt tended to get home in a worse state when he went up against someone with superpowers. "Want to go upstate and see Wanda?"

"Yeah!" Harry cheered, and so they went, taking a train to the stop nearest to the Avengers' headquarters and then walking there.

When they walked in, however, the only Maximoff that greeted them was Pietro, who said, with absolutely no preamble at all, "My sister's gone off on a mission."

"Oh," said Matt.

"But she's going to come back soon, right?" Harry hopefully asked.

"She will," said Pietro, confident in his twin and her eventual return. "Just not today though."

\--

Dumbledore looked the woman over. According to Hagrid, she had just shown up in his hut, having somehow bypassed the age-old charms on the castle that made it look like an abandoned old castle to any other Muggle and the veils that kept it hidden out of sight, and asked if there was a position open for anyone who wanted to teach, and mentioned that she was quite interested in it and, besides, had experience in teaching others before.

He had a sinking feeling this had something to do with Harry. He'd known the boy's guardians had enlisted the Scarlet Witch to help him exert a better control over his abilities when he was younger, and now here she was, stirring her tea by telekinetically moving the spoon around.

"I must say, Ms. Maximoff," Dumbledore started, watching her carefully, "I was not expecting the presence of an Avenger on the grounds. Usually SHIELD--or whatever still exists of it--is content to leave the Wizarding World be."

"I am not here as a part of SHIELD, or even as an Avenger," said Wanda. "I am here because I wish to be a teacher. Granted, I have not been formally taught in magic, but from what little Hagrid told me, it is not always a requirement." The teaspoon stilled, and she wrapped her fingers around the handle of the cup, brought it up to her lips to take a sip.

Dumbledore watched her, and noted the pinched look on her face when she set down the tea. Some people, really, couldn't appreciate a proper cup of tea if you _paid_ them. Especially Americans, and Wanda had spent long enough in America to have picked up some lamentable tastes, it seemed. It was enough to make one despair. "It is not a requirement," he said, because there was a ghost teaching at Hogwarts, "but it will make things more difficult for you, should I let you become part of the staff. Will you consent to being taught the basics, by one of our professors?"

"Of course," said Wanda, and there was a hungry gleam in her eyes that Dumbledore recognized as one that usually belonged to a Ravenclaw. She wanted to learn, and on top of that, to protect her charge.

Hadn't Marlowe resigned from his position last week? Muggle Studies needed a new professor, and one who was a part of the Muggle world from birth would no doubt enrich the subject.

It'd certainly make some of the more bigoted pureblood families (among them the Malfoys) angry, and that, Dumbledore figured, was a good thing.

"There is a position available, now that I think of it," said Dumbledore. "Forgive me, I am an old man, and thus prone to forgetfulness."

Wanda stared at him. Then she said, "No one outside of the Avengers knows this, but Barnes and Steve use the exact same excuse _all the time_."

"And?"

"And I stopped believing them when I realized that Steve had read Batman since it first came out and knew he was fictional and that Barnes knew how to turn off autocorrect," said Wanda. "You'll forgive me if I don't believe you either."

Dumbledore smiled, and leaned back in his chair. "Observant, Ms. Maximoff," he said, with a warm chuckle. "Yes, there is a position open. But I must ask you first: what will you do, should your responsibilities as an Avenger conflict with your responsibilities to the school?"

"I am, first and foremost, an Avenger," Wanda answered promptly. "As a teacher, I would be responsible for teaching my class and keeping them safe. As an Avenger, I am responsible for keeping the entire world safe, be it from external threats or internal threats. Or even threats created by other Avengers." Smart thing to say, Dumbledore thought. He remembered the Civil War, and what had led up to it.

Wanda leaned forward, and said, "But should my duties as the Scarlet Witch interfere in my duties as professor, I will do my best to let you know. But it should not, for the near future--last time we checked, Steve and Stark were on civil terms, aliens weren't paying attention to us, and we killed the lone sea monster slumbering near New York last year."

"Ah," said Dumbledore, wryly, "I suppose that explains why the giant squid seemed so morose last year." He stood up, and said, "As it happens, the Muggle Studies professor resigned recently. I had a very short list of candidates who wished to teach about Muggles--not many wizards, in fact, want to--so your arrival, though unexpected, is most fortuitous." He would need to change some of his plans again, but that was fine. Since Nelson and Murdock took Harry Potter in, he'd needed to get very flexible very fast. "I will be expecting you on the thirty-first of August, Ms. Maximoff. You will need to be introduced to the staff, especially to your own teacher, and given a tour of Hogwarts before the students pour in."

He saw Wanda smile.

\--

The next day, Matt was in court all day, so Foggy, leaving Harry with Karen at the office, and Kirsten went upstate.

Silk was doing better--most of the shakes had gone, and the fever that the withdrawal brought on had been broken, and she had only tried to attack someone once. Considering that HYDRA seemed to flip-flop between wanting the Winter Soldier back and wanting him dead like an unstable ex, her going straight for Bucky was understandable, and Bucky had kept his distance since.

"Do we know who she is?" Kirsten asked Natasha, on their way to Silk's room. "Does she know who she is?"

"We're not sure," said Natasha. "She responds to Silk, and if I assume the role of handler and ask her to state her designation she rattles off a number, but otherwise she won't talk about it. And HYDRA's getting good at wiping its tracks."

"Man," said Foggy, "I wish I didn't have to suggest this, but--if you were to act like a--a handler and say she could talk to us, would that work?"

"It might," said Natasha, reluctantly.

Kirsten shivered at the thought. "Is she okay?" she asked. "Last time we were here she looked like hell."

"Doing better," said Natasha. "Less likely to attack Barnes on sight, at least." They had reached the elevator, and she punched in a code that opened the doors. "We're working on trying to get her to talk to us without me around, but since I'm here, you can see how well that's coming along."

Kirsten slid in behind her, and Foggy hurried in before the doors closed on him.

The Avengers' headquarters had three levels viewable by the public: all three levels above ground had been well-documented by the news networks, every inch of them that wasn't restricted and some that were. Those three floors were where all the interviews and PR work happened, and thus presented a sleek, clean appearance.

All right, with one or two scorch marks on the floor, but these were Avengers, it was a miracle the permanent damage hadn't been worse.

The underground levels, however, were a different matter entirely. They were where the Avengers kept their bedrooms, labs, libraries, meeting rooms, hospital wing, and cells--cells with glass windows and all the amenities and small luxuries one could need, cells where someone would come down and talk to you and feed you, better cells than some prisons, but cells nonetheless.

The Avengers did not use those cells very often for their intended purposes--Bruce had converted one into a room to use for yoga, Bucky turned another into his own personal panic room, and Tony had somehow turned another one into Robot Timeout Corner. However, sometimes someone did end up down here.

Bucky had been one such example, in the early days of his return. He'd suggested the idea himself, pointing out that he was dangerous and highly likely to murder them all with one trigger phrase. He was better now, out of the cells, but now Silk had taken his place.

She sat on a small cot now, one that she had spun from her fingers. She wore a different pair of yoga pants and a rather oversized shirt with the TARDIS on it, and was hugging her knees close to her chest. She didn't look like she slept much.

Kirsten's heart broke even more.

Natasha punched in a code, and the door to Silk's cell slid open with a hiss. Kirsten and Foggy followed her inside, and Silk's head snapped up, her gaze suddenly alert, focused on Natasha. As though she was waiting on orders, Kirsten realized. The thought made her feel sick.

She gave a small wave. Silk didn't seem to pay attention.

Natasha sat down next to the girl. "Silk," she said, kindly, "these two are lawyers. You can talk to them, they're here to help."

"I'm Kirsten McDuffie," said Kirsten. "The clown with me is Foggy Nelson."

"Excuse you, I'm your boss," Foggy said, without any real heat behind his tone.

"Excuse you, Karen and I run your business," Kirsten shot back.

Foggy chuckled. "True," he said, holding his hands up. "Hey, um--Silk. Is that your real name?"

There was a silence, during which Silk's gaze slid briefly away from them, before she looked back and said, in quiet, hoarse tones, "No. But they said it would be enough."

"Do you remember your real name?" Kirsten asked.

Silk's eyes widened, then she shook her head. "I know my name," she whispered, "I know it, _I know it_ , please don't ask me that--"

"Calm down," said Kirsten, unthinkingly reaching a hand out for Silk's shoulder, "it's fine, we're not going to hurt you--"

" _Please don't ask me that!_ " Silk all but wailed.

Kirsten recoiled. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I won't ask." She let out a shaky breath--stupid of her, she supposed, to not take any issues with touch or names into account. Bucky Barnes hadn't seemed to mind, but then, he was mostly recovered. Silk had just been rescued and had just gone through withdrawal. "Do you--Do you know anything? About yourself?" she asked instead.

"Experiment number 0020," said Silk. "Designated Silk." Then she rattled off a list of her abilities: strength, speed, stamina, flexibility, an inhuman ability to sense danger coming, the ability to stick to walls and crawl up them, the ability to organically generate spiderweb silk strong enough to lift a car.

"Zola mentioned Oscorp," said Natasha. "Can you tell these lawyers about it?"

"Why is it that every time we meet a spider-themed metahuman they've got links to Oscorp?" Foggy asked no one in particular.

Silk shook her head. "I don't remember," she said. "It wasn't important."

Kirsten had always wondered what, exactly, had possessed Matt to put on a horned costume every other night or so, with a little boy to take care of and a husband to come home to, and go out in it to punch crime in the face.

She figured she knew why now--there was a sick feeling curling in her gut, disgust and anger and rage at HYDRA, at the people who would take a young girl and break her like this, who would do the same to other people with no remorse, and for what? Science? Control of the entire world? Fun?

"Kirsten," Foggy whispered. "Hey, Kirsten."

Kirsten snapped out of her thoughts, looked down at her hands, balled into tight fists. Her nails left half-moon indents in the skin of her palms as she unclenched her fists.

"Sorry," she said to Silk, whose eyes were fixed on her hands. "Sorry, I just--it's not your fault, I was just angry."

"Oh," said Silk, surprised.

"I told you we weren't going to hurt you, and we were going to take down the people who did," Kirsten said, steel in her voice. "I don't go back on my word."

\--

As Foggy and Kirsten were heading to meet Silk, Karen had taken Harry out for lunch. He had developed a fondness for fried rice, so Karen took him to the nearest Chinese place and ordered two bowls of fried rice, for him and for herself. Matt wouldn't be able to leave the courthouse until, oh, the late afternoon or so, if he hadn't brought his other job's suit along with him and didn't plan on going straight from the courthouse to the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen.

Knowing Matt, he probably did plan on it.

They were on their way back to the office when they heard a familiar tone call, "Heya, Miss Page! And hey, is that Harry Nelson?"

Karen looked up, and saw a hooded figure perched on top of a fire escape.

"Oh," she said.

"Spider-Woman!" Harry cheered.

"That's me," Spider-Woman said, giving Harry a wave. "Hey, buddy, how was London?"

"It was great, I met someone and we're going to Skype," said Harry. "Didn't see David Tennant, though. Sorry."

"Aw, that's a drag, I liked his Doctor," said Spider-Woman. "Can I borrow your Auntie Karen for a hot minute? I've got a favor to ask her."

"You can ask her yourself," Karen said, acidly.

"I'm not really sure Harry should be hearing about it," Spider-Woman began.

"I watch a lot of cable," Harry said, with the world-weary tone of someone who had seen maybe a little too much cable TV and thoroughly regretted it. "I'm sure I can handle it."

"All right, but don't say I didn't warn you," said Spider-Woman, with a sigh. "Page, Albert Moon asked me to look for his sister Cindy. I'm not all that sure she's still alive, it's been a long time, but just in case--Oscorp might know something. She used to work there."

"You spiders seem to have a lot of connections to Oscorp," Karen said.

"What can I say, the flies there just taste delicious," Spider-Woman said, deadpan. "I'd go there, but, uh--I'm sort of _persona non grata_ there, with or without the mask."

"So you want me to go there and ask around about a girl who's been missing a while," said Karen. "You know you could ask someone else to help with that?"

"Yeah, but most of the people I could've asked about this are either dead, dismissed, or _persona non grata_ like me," said Spider-Woman. "You're not. They can't dismiss you, because you don't work for them. They can't kill you, because they're terrified of Daredevil and the lawyers you hang around with. You're perfect. Besides, you guys have one or two cases against Oscorp, don't you?"

"Wouldn't that be a great reason to _not_ go?" Karen asked.

" _Au contraire_ , doubting Thomas," said Spider-Woman. "It's a great reason to go. You can root around for your own cases, and at the same time see if the records say anything about Cindy Moon."

"Wasn't she the girl who disappeared before you and Spider-Man showed up?" Harry asked.

"Bingo, give the kid a prize," said Spider-Woman, aiming a finger-gun at Harry. "Yeah, I've got a feeling the initial investigation missed something, but I can't go near Oscorp. Your aunt can, though, and she's got the patience to sort through a lot of files for what she needs. Me, I tend to the more hands-on type of information-gathering."

"You mean you make like Matt and punch people," said Harry, matter-of-fact.

"Something like that," Spider-Woman said, then she slung her bag off her shoulders and started digging around in it. "Here, burner phone," she said, fishing out a flip phone and tossing it to Karen, who caught it just before it hit the ground. "It's got my number on it. If you find anything out at Oscorp, let me know."

"I have way too many burner phones," Karen said, nevertheless stashing the phone into her bag. "I'll try, but I'm not promising anything."

"Can't have too many," Spider-Woman argued. "And, hey, Harry?"

"Yeah?" Harry asked.

"You're going to kick ass in London," she said, and though it was hard to tell under the mask, Harry figured she was smiling. "I'm sure of it."

\--

A few days before the first of September, as the autumn chill started to bite at ungloved fingers, Foggy took Harry to their regular ice cream parlor and said to him, as Harry licked at his chocolate ice cream, "You know, I could've been a butcher."

"Really?" Harry asked. He heard this story over a thousand times already, but it was one of his favorites, and so he didn't mind hearing it again.

"Yeah, little buddy, with my own deli and everything!" He gestured to the butcher shop just outside the parlor, in demonstration. "With an apron too. And honey-cured hams and steaks. Could've been the best butcher in Hell's Kitchen, Mom said so herself. You know what I told her?"

" _No, Mom, I wanna be a lawyer_ ," Harry said, at the same time Foggy said the exact same words. They looked at each other, then burst into laughter. "Why'd you become a lawyer, anyway?"

"To make lots and lots of money," said Foggy. "And look how well that's worked out, huh?" He ruffled Harry's hair, and smiled. "I'm blaming it all on Matt," he said. "Him and his saving-people thing."

"You've got a saving-people thing too," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, but don't tell anybody, I've got a rep to uphold." Foggy dipped his spoon into his own sundae. "I'm gonna miss you while you're all the way in the UK, little man," he said. "Skype, all right?"

"I dunno if my laptop will work," said Harry, skeptically. "I mean, Kate's phone went on the fritz while we were in Diagon Alley."

"Well, lucky for you," said Foggy, unzipping the bag he'd brought along and bringing out a sleek grey laptop, "I once pulled Tony Stark's ass out of trouble--not legal trouble, real actual trouble that I beat away with my trusty baseball bat--and he's always trying to impress you and piss off Matt at the same time, so you now have your very own magic-proof laptop. With wi-fi!"

"Wow," Harry breathed, and opened it up. Thankfully Tony hadn't programmed an AI into it, though that had been a hard-won fight.

"Skype us, all right, we're gonna worry about you," said Foggy.

"You don't have to," Harry said. "I'm gonna be fine."

"Yeah, but can you blame us?" Foggy huffed. "You got Matt's penchant for getting into trouble."

"Matt goes out and finds trouble so he can punch it in the face," Harry pointed out. "I don't. I don't think I'm gonna get into as much trouble as he does."

"Point," Foggy conceded. Then he smiled sadly. "I'm gonna miss you, Harry," he said. "A lot."

Harry sucked in a breath, felt a lump growing in his throat. "I'm gonna miss you too, Foggy," he said. "You and Matt."

Foggy's eyes seemed to water, and Foggy pulled him into a tight hug, then pressed a light kiss to the top of his head. "You," he whispered, "are the best little boy that ever got dropped on our doorstep. I can't believe we got that lucky."

"I'm the _only_ little boy that ever got dropped on your doorstep, Foggy," Harry reminded him, sniffling into his shirt.

"And every day I'm glad for it," said Foggy, breaking away after pressing a kiss to Harry's scar. "I love you, Harry. Me and Matt and Kirsten and Karen, we love you, and we're gonna miss you."

"I'm gonna miss you all too," said Harry.

"Come back for Christmas, all right?" Foggy said.

Harry smiled, through the tears. "Yeah," he said, "I will."


	11. Platform 9 and 3/4

They left on August 31. Wanda hadn't come with them, had said cryptically that she had to attend to some other business first, and as much as she regretted it she wouldn't be able to come see Harry off, but had given him a peck on the cheek before she saw him off on the Quinjet. "Be well, Harry. I would ask you to stay out of trouble, but considering who raised you, it will likely come find you instead."

"I don't get into _that_ much trouble," Matt had said with a huff.

"Yeah, Matt, I've got bad news for you," said Foggy, "you do."

"Don't go looking for trouble, guys," Kirsten said, in a tone of voice obviously meant to mimic Matt, judging from how terribly gravelly it was, "because that's _my_ job, because I'm _Daredevil_!"

"No I'm not," Matt said, automatically.

Karen covered her laugh with her hand and turned it into a theatrical cough. Clint, who was piloting, didn't even bother--Harry heard him cackling from the pilot's seat.

\--

Yelena cleaned off the knife she had used on her last victim. Most of the employees she'd abducted had either honestly not known what was in Vault 713, or had clammed up the second they realized what she was asking after. This one, however, had given her a valuable nugget of information--probably the electricity and the Cruciatus Curse had something to do with it.

So. The Philosopher's Stone was at a safer place than even Gringotts. There weren't many she could think of, off the drop of a hat, but if she remembered correctly, Nicolas Flamel had worked closely with Albus Dumbledore, and Hogwarts--well, there was no safer place to be than Hogwarts.

She glanced at the corpse of the woman who had worked as a janitor at Gringotts, and the car battery she had used on her. She'd have to take care of that first.

And so it was that a police constable, kayaking down a river for practice in a kayaking race that her precinct would soon be holding, bumped into the corpse of a woman floating downstream, and proceeded to keep calm for long enough to call in the body first to 999.

 _Then_ she screamed.

\--

"Wow," said Foggy, the next day, having picked up a newspaper from one of the nearby stands on the way to King's Cross, "first people getting their melons chopped off by car door, now people getting electrocuted to death by car battery. What will they think of next?"

"Glad to see New York and London do have some things in common," said Karen, with a sigh. She glanced at Harry, who was rubbing his eyes, still readjusting to having to wake up early--and come to think of it, there were the differences between timezones in New York and in the United Kingdom to deal with, too.

"Unlike timezones," Kirsten said, rubbing at her eyes as well, and tugging Matt aside before he could collide into someone tapping away on their phone. "You know I know you could've dodged that easily?" she asked.

"Dodged _what_ easily?" Matt said, innocently.

"One day I'm going to get you to come out with it," Kirsten said.

"Hey, Harry," said Foggy, steering Harry towards Kate, standing underneath the KING'S CROSS sign, "go talk to your friend. Kate, wasn't it?"

Harry's eyes widened. His mouth turned upwards in a grin, and he all but tore away from Foggy, shouting, "Kate! _Kate_ , it's me!"

Kate blinked, then turned. Her bags were piled on a trolley behind her, all of them some shade of purple, and the bored expression on her face melted away when she saw Harry, her eyes brightening. "Harry!" she yelled back, just before Harry nearly tackled her. "Oof, Harry, we Skyped just yesterday! Come on, get off me, you're embarrassing me in front of my roommate."

"Your roommate?" Harry asked.

"Me, chico," said a young woman, no older than seventeen, with dark hair and eyes and star-shaped earrings hanging from her earlobes. "Soon to be her _former_ roommate, sadly."

"You're just sad you have to do the dishes now, Chavez," Kate shot back, grinning. Then she glanced at Harry and said, "Harry, this is America Chavez. America, this is Harry Nelson."

"Nice to meet you, Harry," said America, sticking her hand out. Harry saw the blue outline of a star tattooed on her left wrist before he shook it. "Kate's said a few things about you and your dads." She glanced up to see Foggy and Matt coming over and said, "I take it that's them?"

"Yeah, that's Matt and Foggy," said Harry.

"Foggy Nelson, a pleasure to meet you, ma'am," said Foggy, sticking his hand out. America smiled and shook it, then, unthinkingly, stuck her hand out for Matt to shake before she seemed to remember the cane and the glasses and stuck it back into her pocket.

"Sorry about that," she said, her voice surprisingly casual. "The handshake thing, I mean."

"It's fine, it happens all the time," said Matt, as Kirsten came up behind him, giving him a raised eyebrow as though she couldn't believe him. He stuck his hand out instead, and said, "Matt Murdock."

"America Chavez," said America. "And who are these other two?"

"The two who run our business," said Matt.

"Mostly by inventing a filing system neither of them can figure out," said Karen. "I'm Karen Page, I'm the secretary. Technically the administrative assistant, but secretary's shorter."

"Kirsten McDuffie, associate," said Kirsten, a hand sneaking onto Karen's elbow. "I figured out Karen's filing system."

"By seducing it out of me," Karen huffed.

"To be fair, it wasn't just for the filing system," Kirsten teased.

"You two are as bad as Matt and Foggy," Harry said, looking very grossed out by the prospect of two PDA-happy couples in his vicinity.

"Speaking of which," said Foggy, slinging an arm over Matt's shoulders and nuzzling his neck.

"I swear you two are doing this on _purpose_ ," Harry huffed. Then he turned to Kate and America and said, "Either of you know where Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is yet?"

"Let's find out," said Kate.

\--

"What do you mean, there's _no such thing_?!" Kate half-yelled ten minutes later.

"I mean," said the man they had asked, adjusting his conductor's hat and staring at these no doubt insane people, "that there's no such thing. It's Platform Nine and then straight on to Platform Ten." He fixed them all with a strange look, then proceeded to walk away, grumbling about how he was not paid enough for this shit.

Harry looked around, clutching Hedwig close to his chest. Their group was starting to attract attention, mostly focused on the sight of a snowy owl in a cage and a young woman holding a cat in a cage, fuming after the conductor.

"Goddammit," said Foggy, at last. "This is another of those magic things, isn't it?" He kicked at one of the pillars. "Should've asked Hagrid how to get to Nine and Three-Quarters," he grumbled.

"No luck," Kirsten reported, coming back with Karen after having gone off to ask a guard. "Asking after a great big castle in the middle of god knows where didn't work. What a surprise, huh?"

"Nothing either," said America, coming back from the counter. "There's no trains that leave at eleven, at least according to the ticket girl."

Harry looked up at the board. 10:50 am, the clock read, and he felt a cold nervousness settle into his bones. Here he was, with an owl in a cage, a pocket full of wizard money, a trunk full of books, and no idea where he and Kate were supposed to go.

Hedwig gave an inquisitive hoot.

" _Hell_ ," said Foggy, feelingly.

That was when Matt cocked his head, smiled and said, "Not quite," as though he'd heard something. Sure enough, another group of people--a gaggle of redheads, with a rather plump woman leading them--was passing them by, and Harry caught the woman muttering something that sounded like "and of course it's packed with Muggles, of _course_ , come along--"

"Follow the redheads," said Kate, swinging herself and her cart around.

"Redheads?" said Matt, confused.

Harry pushed his cart along, keeping an eye on them, heart hammering against his chest with excitement. The woman was leading four boys and a smaller girl along, all of them flaming redheads, and it was easy to pick them all out in a crowd--not just because of the collective redness of their hair, but also because they were pushing along carts that had trunks of clothes and books and they had owls, hooting at Hedwig, who hooted back.

Daenerys, in her cage, hissed at the owls.

They stopped at the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, and the law firm of Nelson & Murdock, along with their mascot and two hangers-on, stopped as well.

"All right, Percy," the woman was saying, to the boy who looked like he was the oldest of the group, "you go first."

The boy--Percy, his name was, and Harry snorted when he remembered the other Percy he had known back in New York--sucked in a breath, then marched towards the barrier. Harry kept a careful eye on him, made sure not to take his eyes off for one moment, but then--

"Aww, Mels, I think we're lost!" whined a tourist that passed them by to his wife, who raised a perfectly plucked brow. "I toldja we shoulda taken that left turn!"

"Fuck off and eat my shit, Neil," the woman told him, and when they had passed out of view, Percy was gone.

"Goddamn tourists," Foggy muttered.

Harry inched closer to the group.

"Fred, you next," said the woman.

"I'm not Fred, I'm _George_ ," said the boy--one of a set of twins, Harry realized, and one who looked as though this happened to him on an everyday basis. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"He's lying," Matt murmured, as he caught up to Harry, his hand bumping into his neck and feeling around for his shoulder, and bent down to his ear. "His heartbeat ticked up slightly."

"You are such a showoff," said Foggy, who caught up just a second later.

"Sorry, George, dear," said the woman, before she turned to look at Harry and Kate, and their people behind them. "Oh, hello, dears! First time at Hogwarts?" She nodded to one of her sons and said, "Ron's new too."

"Uh, yeah," said Harry. "From America."

"Fresh meat!" the twin who'd first spoken--Fred who'd said his name was George--cheered.

"Don't worry," added the other twin, who Harry assumed was George. "We won't eat you."

"Not immediately, anyway."

"Just after you fatten up a bit."

Foggy stepped closer. Matt smiled politely, both hands on his cane, and said, "Well, actually, most of us are just here to see Harry and Kate off. We were wondering where Platform Nine and Three Quarters was?"

"Harry--you don't mean--" the youngest boy started.

"Harry _Nelson_ ," Harry said, quickly. Technically, it wasn't a lie, it just wasn't the name everyone knew him by. "This is Kate. We're not related, she's my friend." Kate waved.

"I'm Foggy Nelson," said Foggy. "This is Matt Murdock. We're Harry's legal guardians. The ladies with us--"

"--can introduce ourselves, Foggy," Kirsten said, stepping in, a hand on Karen's elbow. "I'm Kirsten McDuffie."

"Karen Page," said Karen, "technically, I'm their secretary."

"She actually runs our law firm," Foggy confided, cupping his hand over the side of his mouth as though confessing a deep, dark secret. "We hired her for free, she made herself indispensable to us and now we can't run it without her. Or Kirsten."

The youngest girl seemed to stare up at Karen and Kirsten in utter awe. In later years, Harry would suspect that this was the moment where she decided that these two would be her role models.

"I'm America Chavez," said America, "and I just met these clowns. I'm here to see Kate off."

"Pleasure to meet you!" George (or was it Fred? It was hard to tell) chirped, eyes twinkling with mischief. "I'm Fred. I'm pretty sure."

("Liar," Matt muttered, hearing the slight uptick in the boy's heartbeat.)

"I'm George," said the other twin. "This little bloke with very little of the family looks is Ronald Bilius Weasley."

"Fred!" Ron half-shrieked. He was thin and gangly, tall for his age, and had freckles peppering the front of his long nose, and Harry decided he quite liked this guy. At the very least he'd need someone who could help him navigate around the Wizarding World.

Fred--or George, whoever--put a hand over his heart like he had just been shot. "Ronniekins, I'm hurt," he said. "First our dear old mother, now you? You should know I'm George by now!"

"Well, I'm sorry," Ron huffed, glaring after his older brother as George (or Fred) grabbed his cart's handle and tugged it back, backing up as though building up momentum.

"Only joking, I am Fred," said Fred, and he started to run towards the barrier at full speed, egged on by his twin.

"He's going to crash," said Kirsten, with certainty.

Fred disappeared through the barrier.

"Oh," said Kirsten, blinking in surprise.

"What happened?" Matt asked. It had looked strange to him too, the way his radar sense had rendered it--a young boy's flaming outline, careening straight for a serious injury, suddenly disappearing upon contact with the barrier with a sucking noise.

"He _vanished_ ," said Kate, stunned.

"How do we do that?" asked Harry. "Get onto the platform."

The woman smiled, kindly. "Not to worry," she said, and told him.

Harry stared at her a moment, sure she was pulling his leg, then at the solid barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten. He looked at Kate, who seemed to consider it herself and looked at him too, then at Ron, who was being fussed over by his mother. Then he reached out for Matt.

"This'll be a bit heavy for me to push," he said, "can you and Foggy help?"

"Of course," said Matt, slipping his cane onto his wrist and gripping on to the cart's handle, one hand on Harry's right. Foggy placed a hand over Harry's left and the other on the handle, and all three backed up.

Then they took off.

\--

They did not, as Foggy half-expected, crash.

What happened instead was this: Foggy squeezed his eyes shut just before they met the barrier, thinking they would crash into it and he'd end up with the not-fun kind of bruises, but instead they just--kept going. Eventually, they slowed to a stop, and Foggy opened one eye.

The sight that greeted him looked a lot like Grand Central at rush hour, except above ground, and with a steam engine and more owls than he'd ever seen before, and cats of every color weaving in between legs with unparalleled skill. Students were rushing about, being hugged by their parents and showered with kisses, showing off trinkets they had gained over the summer, catching up with friends as they climbed onboard. Foggy even spotted a young girl with dark hair and brown skin hugging her mother and father and older brother goodbye, and figured she looked kind of familiar.

"It's Grand Central all over again," Matt muttered, a wrinkle appearing between his brows, his glasses slightly askew. Foggy kind of pitied him, crowds in tight places played merry hell on his senses.

Harry was squinting after the dark-haired girl, as though he had recognized her from somewhere.

Then someone behind them yelled, " _Get out of the way!_ "

Foggy, Harry, and Matt swerved sharply left, nearly bumping into another Hogwarts student, as Kate, Kirsten and Karen careened past them. Foggy noted that Kate's feet were not, in fact, on the ground.

Then America strode through, humming a catchy tune. She stepped casually to the side, and one of the twins--George, Foggy figured--shot through the barrier with a bark of laughter, followed by Ron, his mother, and his sister.

"How did you do that?" Ron asked America. "Just--walk through! How--you're a Muggle!"

"Eh," said America, "chico, the laws of magic can kiss my ass." She turned to Kate, who looked a little windblown by her experience, and clapped her on the back. "You stay safe now, princess," she said.

"Not a princess, America, I've told you that," Kate huffed, but she smiled anyway. "Don't let the dishes pile up while I'm gone."

"Hey, photo op!" Karen announced, fishing out her phone from the depths of her bag. "Kate, can you--"

"My pleasure," said Kate, taking Karen's phone. Foggy slung his arm around Matt's shoulders, pulled Harry closer, as Kirsten went over and stuck up two fingers behind Matt's head and Karen took her place beside Foggy, curving her hands up below her chin.

"Are you doing the finger-horns trick?" Matt asked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kirsten innocently said, crooking her fingers behind Matt's head to make them look a little more like horns.

Foggy turned his hopeless giggle into a cough, then leaned in closer to Matt, head resting on his husband's shoulder.

Kate held up three fingers. "On the count of three," she said, "say cheese! One, two, three--"

\--

As the esteemed law firm of Nelson & Murdock took one last picture with their mascot before sending him off to wizard school, at the other end of the platform, Kamala Khan was climbing onto the platform.

Magic! _Her!_ It was like something out of a crackfic, or a serious magical AU, only it was real and she was living it. She pinched herself again--no, not a dream, it had not been a dream since she booked a flight to Britain and picked up her schoolbooks in a street that was hidden from the rest of the world through magic.

She was going to miss Ammi and Abu, certainly, and Jersey as well--Aamir wasn't magic, and Bruno and Nakia had stayed behind in Jersey--but she looked forward to her year.

She was wandering around the train, looking for an empty compartment when something bumped into her leg. She looked down and saw a black and white cat, looking up at her and meowing pitifully.

"Aww," she said, "where'd you come from, little lady?" She bent down and let the cat leap into her arms. "Hey, is your owner on the train?" she asked it.

The cat didn't deign to answer that, instead licking at its paws.

"I guess I'll ask around," said Kamala. "If they're not here, though, I think I'll be keeping you."

(Yelena, being a cat, did not smile. But she did purr.

Safest place in the world, her ass.)


	12. Hogwarts Express

The last thing Harry did, before he pushed his cart down the platform to Hogwarts, was let himself get pulled into a group hug. It was vaguely embarrassing, but Harry couldn't really bring himself to care, he knew he would miss all of them--Karen and Kirsten, and most of all Matt and Foggy. He'd miss New York, and the city lights, and the vigilantes that swung past his bedroom window sometimes, and the little ice cream parlor Matt always took him to. He wondered if there was one near Hogwarts.

"You're the best little boy that ever got dropped on our doorstep," Foggy whispered.

"I'm the _only_ little boy that ever got dropped on your doorstep," Harry huffed, as he usually did when Foggy brought up the time Harry ended up on their doorstep as an infant, but this time there were tears in his eyes.

"The _best_ one," Foggy repeated, and hugged him tight and close. "See you on Christmas?"

"Yeah," said Harry, hugging back.

"Stay safe," Karen had said, giving him a brief peck on the top of his head, then hugging him briefly before she broke away.

"Be well, Harry," was Kirsten's farewell, and even if he hadn't known her as long as Karen, she was still family.

So he'd said, "You too, Kirsten."

"Harry," Matt had said, bending down and pressing something into his hand. "I love you. Foggy loves you. We all do, never doubt that, all right? And I know I'm not going to be able to stop you from fighting--"

"You'd be pretty hypocritical if you did," Harry said, dry as dust.

"Guilty as charged," Matt said, not very repentant. His fingers skimmed along Harry's cheeks, and he said, quiet, "If you're going to punch anyone through the year, remember what I told you about your thumb's placement. And--try not to get into _too_ much trouble, all right?"

"Now that's hypocritical," Harry said.

Matt smiled. "Foggy already worries about me, at least try not to give him a heart attack worrying about you too," he said. "Remember Thurgood Marshall? _We cannot play ostrich_."

" _We must dissent from the indifference,_ " Harry recited, unconsciously slipping into an imitation of how Matt had recited it to him, all those years. " _We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, the mistrust._ " He grinned.

"Good boy," said Matt. "If you're going to fight anything, fight that."

"You just want me to be a lawyer one day," Harry jokingly accused.

"Can you blame me?" Matt flippantly said, and pressed a kiss to Harry's scar--or, all right, a spot to the right of Harry's scar. "Be well, Harry," he said.

"Hey, uh," Foggy said, gesturing to Harry's things packed in rather heavy trunks and Hedwig, "you want any help getting that on?"

"Yeah, they're a bit heavy," said Harry, quietly thankful for what little time with Matt and Foggy that he could steal.

And so Foggy and Matt helped carry Harry's things to the last compartment, and Harry managed to get Hedwig and the fairly light bag Matt was carrying inside the compartment. The heavier trunk Foggy had, however, proved a little more troublesome.

"Ow!" Foggy hissed, after the trunk nearly dropped onto his foot for the second time. "Okay, that's the second time--let's try it again."

"Need a hand?" came a voice. Harry glanced to the side, and saw one of the redheaded twins--Fred, or George.

"You're George, right?" asked Matt.

George blinked at Matt, as though he hadn't expected the man to get it right on his first try. Harry covered his smirk with a cough. "Yes, as it just so happens!" said George, quite cheerily. "At least I'm sure of it."

"I'm sure you are," Matt dryly remarked, raising an eyebrow.

"We could use a hand, yeah," said Harry. "I think Foggy's going to be limping back to America if he keeps dropping my trunk on his foot."

"Excuse you, Harry, is it my fault your stuff's so _heavy_?" Foggy huffed, leaning against the train and trying to catch his breath. "God. When we get back to New York I'm hitting the gym, my arms feel like they're gonna fall off."

"Miracles do happen," Harry said.

"Nah, the real miracle would be making Foggy keep to it," Matt said, with a grin.

Foggy looked around and said, with no real heat behind it, "You are so lucky we're surrounded by kids."

George snorted out a laugh, and turned to shout, "Oi, Fred! Come over here!"

They managed to get Harry's things stowed away in a corner of his compartment, with the twins' help, and Harry pushed his sweat-soaked bangs back from his eyes.

"Thanks," he said, absently.

"What's that?" said one of the twins--Fred or George, probably--abruptly, pointing at Harry's scar.

"Oh," said Foggy, "shit."

"Blimey, I think it is," said the other--George or Fred, god knew which one. There was awe on his face that made Harry feel very uncomfortable, like a bug with a very interesting anomaly being examined under a microscope. "Are you--"

"He is," said the first twin, "aren't you?"

"Who?" Harry asked, dreading the answer.

" _Harry Potter_ ," they chorused.

"No," said Matt, smooth as possible as he stepped closer in a completely unsubtle fashion, "his name's Harry Nelson."

"Yeah, that's--Nelson, it's _Nelson_ ," Harry stammered.

"He keeps getting mistaken for this Harry Potter, it's a pretty common mistake," Foggy added, with a polite grin that nevertheless said _if you don't drop this now I will do something I may seriously regret_.

The two boys seemed to gawk at him, as though unsure, but then a woman's voice came drifting through the open doors: "Fred, George, are you there?"

"Coming, Mum!" they both yelled back, giving Harry one last scrutinizing glance before hurrying off.

"Man," said Foggy, "if that's what fame's like, I am so glad I'm not famous."

"Technically I'm not famous," Harry grumbled, "my scar is," and he sank into a seat by the window, where the twins' mother was fussing over them and Ron. Matt sat down next to him, and Foggy across from them. "Is there any way I can borrow Karen's makeup kit or something?" he asked.

Matt shook his head, taking his glasses off. Sightless eyes focused on Harry's forehead, to the right of his scar.

"You got any ideas for him?" asked Foggy. "I mean, between the two of us, you're the one with some experience in being famous. Exhibit A: knocking your peepers out of commission by saving an old man at the ripe old age of nine. Exhibit B: _You-Know-Who_."

"Which one?" Matt asked.

"Double D, duh," said Foggy.

Harry snorted out a laugh.

"Technically, I'm not as famous as Harry seems to be," said Matt.

"Daredevil is," said Harry. "You end up on TV every night, that kind of means you're famous."

"You ended up on BuzzFeed yesterday as the best vigilante ass they had ever seen," said Foggy. "I hate to break it to you, Matt, but you're famous. How'd you deal with it?"

"They're completely different situations," Matt sighed. "But fine: I ignore it. It's a nice ego boost, but you remember the bombings, when Fisk was in charge?"

"Yeah, everyone hated you," said Foggy. "You even had a weirdly fitting nickname: the Devil of Hell's Kitchen." He snorted out a derisive laugh.

Harry looked at Matt. Out of his suit, with his glasses off, he didn't look particularly devilish. He didn't even look like someone who could beat anyone up, but he did have that quiet grace of a man who knows damn well just what to say to take someone down. "And then you became Daredevil, so it's not much of a change," Harry said.

"I want you both to remember that I did not pick either nickname," Matt huffed. "And, Harry, it doesn't always work. Ignoring it, I mean. Sometimes you have to use it--I have a feeling Harry Potter can go places Harry Nelson can't."

"And vice versa," said Harry, somewhat sourly. "I don't want the fame. The name's nice, it's got a ring to it, but the fame is--I could do without that." He sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face.

"You remember what Kirsten said, right?" Foggy asked. "They don't know you. We know you. _You_ know you, and that's all there is to it."

Matt didn't say anything, but instead felt around for Harry's hand and pressed something into it. "No matter who or what you are," he said, quiet, "you're our boy." He closed Harry's fingers around whatever it was, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "We're going to miss you," he said.

Harry fisted his hands in Matt's suit jacket, and pulled him in close for a hug. He felt Matt's arms wrap around him, then, a second later, Foggy's arms as well. He felt a warm wetness dropping onto his shoulder, and tactfully decided not to mention it.

After all, he was crying too.

"Last hug," said Foggy, his voice watery.

Then they broke away, and Matt slipped his glasses back on as he stood, picking up his cane. "We should get going," he said, "Kirsten's probably wondering where we are."

"Yeah," said Foggy. "Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah, Foggy?"

"Take care of yourself," said Foggy, taking Matt's arm and stepping out of the compartment. Harry watched them leave, then leaned back in his chair, wiped the tears away and opened up his fist, wondering what had been so important that Matt felt the need to press it into his hand before he left.

It was a bracelet. It was made from ice cream wrappers, and had clearly been made a long time ago. It was a little bit crumpled, but it held together surprisingly well, despite its apparent age.

He slipped it onto his wrist, and marveled at how well it fit.

\--

Harry kept an eye on the window as the train began to move.

More specifically, he kept an eye on his family. He saw Matt, Karen and Kirsten waving, saw Foggy trying to keep up with the train and falling back when it began to pick up too much speed, saw him waving from the platform with proud tears in his eyes. Harry waved back, until finally, Foggy and Platform Nine and Three Quarters fell away from sight.

Then he leaned back in his seat and ran his finers over the paper texture of the bracelet that Matt had given him.

He was going to Hogwarts. The thought made him feel giddy with excitement. He was going to Hogwarts, to do magic, to be a real, actual _wizard!_ For a second he pictured himself as Gandalf, complete with the snowy white beard and wise expressions, and burst into a hopeless fit of laughter.

"Um," came a voice, "is this seat taken?"

Harry froze, clapped a hand over his mouth. It was the redheaded boy from earlier, Ron, and Harry saw the black smudge on his nose, the finger pointing at the seat opposite from him.

"It's just that everywhere else was full," said Ron. "You don't mind, right, Harry?"

Harry shrugged. "Nah, I don't mind," he said, and Ron sat down across from him.

"Hey, Ron! And hullo, Harry!"

Harry groaned and let his head fall forward into his hands. The twins had come back.

"We're going down to the middle of the train," said the one on the left--George? Probably. "Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."

Ron looked as though he was going to throw up at the very thought of a giant tarantula anywhere near him. "Right, thanks," he mumbled, "I am so glad I know that."

Harry stretched out his hand to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder.

"Oh, and Ron," said the other twin, Fred, probably, "try not to get too starstruck around him, yeah?" They grinned, then left, shutting the compartment's door behind them.

Harry let out a breath, then glanced at Ron, who was staring at him as though he wasn't sure what to ask Harry first: why he hadn't told him who he was, or if Ron could see the scar on his forehead. "I was telling the truth when I told you my name, you know," said Harry, at last. "It really is Harry Nelson. It's just--Matt and Foggy are my adoptive parents."

"Yeah, but you're--" Ron started, then he let out a breath. "Are you really Harry Potter?" he asked.

"Well, not by name, no," Harry answered. "Nelson's as good a surname as any. But if you're asking me if I was--I guess so."

"Oh," said Ron. "I thought it was just one of Fred and George's jokes. Can I--"

"--see the scar?" Harry completed for him, with a sigh. He lifted his bangs up to let Ron get a good look at his scar, then said, deadpan, "That'll be a Knut."

" _What_?!" Ron half-shouted.

Harry held up a hand. "Kidding," he said. "It's just that--you know, since I found out, everyone's been asking to see it?"

"Oh." Ron seemed to relax. "Do you--do you remember it?"

Harry shrugged. "I was one year old at the time, the best I get out of the memory is a light show," he said. "Do _you_ remember things from when you were just a year old?"

Ron made a face, and said, "Yeah, I guess you've got a point there." He stared at Harry for a few more moments. Harry propped his chin up on his hands and stared back, before Ron seemed to shake himself and then look out the window.

"Sorry, mate," Ron mumbled.

"It's fine," said Harry, "just answer some of my questions: is everyone in your family a wizard?"

Ron hummed. "Yes--well, mostly," he said. "Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant. Or he used to be, until he landed in jail. I think he was an accountant, anyway. We don't talk about him much, though."

\--

Somewhere in New York, Molly Weasley's second cousin--who was most definitely _not_ an accountant and had been out of jail for years by this point, not that the Weasleys knew that, neither party kept in touch--pulled the Ant-Man's helmet off his head. "Okay," he said, "can we try that again? With less ' _nearly stepping on Scott_ ' here?"

"How was I supposed to know you were there?!" Pietro huffed, crossing his arms. "You were very tiny!"

"The point is to look where you're going so you don't accidentally step on me!" Scott said. "This makes it, what, the tenth time? Come _on_ , Maximoff." God, dealing with his crazy magical family was easier than this, not that he was going to say anything about that.

\--

"You must know loads of magic already," said Harry, unaware of the goings-on in Avengers HQ. He was interested only in Ron, right now, and also, magic.

Ron shrugged, as though this was nothing special. It was all in where you stood, Harry supposed. "I suppose," he said. "I heard you went to live with Muggles. In America. What's it like there? What are the Muggles like?"

"Can't go a week without meeting a superhero or getting caught up in some weird take over the world plot," Harry said. This was only barely an exaggeration, New York was generally agreed by the whole world and most of its inhabitants to be especially susceptible to supervillains and superheroes. "But it's nice. And New Yorkers are pretty used to crazy sh--stuff. Last year there was a sea monster that tried to rampage through New York, it was so gross."

"Blimey, Harry, really?" Ron was enraptured now, leaning forward in his seat. "Did you get to see it?"

"Yeah, duh," Harry said. "It was like, five hundred feet tall, of course I saw it." And also Matt and Spider-Man helping the Avengers take it down before it could rampage through Queens and then Hell's Kitchen, but Harry didn't mention that part. "Lucky thing the court hearing got postponed or Matt and Foggy would've been in trouble."

Now Ron looked concerned. "Are they in trouble?" he asked. "I mean, they said they run a law firm--"

Harry shook his head. "Nah, they're lawyers, they can talk themselves out of trouble easy," he said, not mentioning Matt's penchant for seeking out trouble and picking fights with mobsters in dark alleys while dressed as a demon. "Their client would've been in trouble if he hadn't shown up for the hearing, though, what with the sea monster causing traffic. Actually, it sort of helped, they were having trouble putting the defense together since their client was the only suspect."

"Did they get him off?" Ron wanted to know.

Harry grinned. "Of course they did," he said. "They're great lawyers. The best ever, in fact."

"That's amazing," Ron breathed.

Harry shrugged. "They've done a lot better," he said. "But hey, what's it like living in a family full of wizards? I bet it's fun, I kind of wish I had three wizard brothers."

"Five," Ron groaned, burying his hands in his face, and then told him about his brothers--Charlie, Bill, Percy, Fred and George, and how everyone expected him to do just as well as his brothers in school. Harry winced at the thought--considering that Ron's older brothers had an impressive list of achievements, that was going to be a tricky feat to achieve. "And you never get anything new with five older brothers, either," Ron mournfully continued. "I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

So saying, he pulled out a fat grey rat from his pocket. It seemed, funnily enough, to be asleep.

"Aww," said Harry, more to be polite than anything. Rats were in great abundance around Hell's Kitchen, and usually, when Harry thought of rats, he thought, _Oh, shit, do we need to fumigate our apartment again?_ It had become rather clear to him, though, that the Wizarding World had some very interesting interpretations of the word "pet".

"Scabbers isn't adorable, he's useless," said Ron, "he hardly ever wakes up."

"Eh, you said Percy had him, and rats get pretty lazy when they get old," said Harry.

"How'd you know that?"

"Had a class rat in school," said Harry. "It died tragically because Spider-Woman threw Doctor Octopus through a window, and our rat's cage was way too near to escape." He shrugged. "Normal stuff, you know."

Ron stared at him. "Harry," he said, at last, "you're kidding. That's not normal. That's--How are you _alive_?"

Harry let his head fall back onto his seat. "Sorry, I forget it's not for everybody else," he said. "I mean, I've lived in New York all my life. Bank robberies and superhero street fights are normal for me, sort of like magic's normal for you." He glanced at the sleeping rat again. "Hey, why don't you have an owl? Everybody else has one."

"Nah, Percy got the owl already from my dad for being made a prefect," said Ron, "and they couldn't aff--I mean, I got Scabbers instead." He blushed, a furious and embarrassed sort of red, and looked out the window as though he'd let too much slip already.

Harry felt, suddenly, like the worst person in the world. "I didn't have much money too," he confessed, "up until a month or so ago. Matt and Foggy take on a lot of pro bono cases." And it wasn't like Matt's night job paid very much, either. "Most of their caseload's pro bono, actually."

"Pro what now?"

"Pro bono," Harry said. "I think it means for free. Or so cheap it's pretty much free." He shrugged. "Foggy bought secondhand clothes all the time for me. Sometimes he even passed down his old stuff. Matt had some money from his dad, but it wasn't really much, and he sunk what remained of it after college into the firm. Really, I don't think they really knew what they were getting into when they got me."

"Seems to me you turned out all right, though," Ron said.

Harry smiled. "Yeah, I guess I did," he said.

"Do you miss your parents, though?" Ron asked. "Your real parents, I mean."

"Sort of," Harry admitted. "I never knew them, so I can't properly miss them, I think. But I do still." He scratched the back of his neck, and said, "Matt and Foggy always figured some nutjob killed them, y'know. Like in the movies. We only found out it was someone named Voldemort last mo--"

Ron gasped, eyes widening.

"You said You-Know-Who's name!" he said, sounding equally shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you of all people--"

"I didn't know you're not supposed to say it," Harry said, a little helpless. "It's not being brave or anything, I just didn't know. And besides, Matt says that any time someone wants you to be scared of even saying their name, it usually means you should say it, because it's just a name and they're not something to be scared of."

" _You-Know-Who!_ " cried Ron, deeply awed now. "Nothing to be scared of!"

"Well, from what everyone says, he's dead, so I guess so," said Harry, deeply uncertain now. "Look, I really don't know anything about magic." Not this sort of magic, anyway, Wanda taught him something else entirely, but he decided not to mention that. "I don't," he repeated, then gave voice to a secret doubt he'd been nursing in his breast: "I bet I'd be terrible in class. _Mr. Nelson, that is not a toad, that is a person with toad warts!_ "

Ron choked on a laugh. "No," he managed to say, after he could breathe again. "No, you won't be, there's lots of people coming from Muggle families. You'll be fine."

\--

When Matt, Foggy, Karen and Kirsten came back to New York some hours after seeing off Harry, having called Clint to come by to pick them up in the Quinjet, they found a solitary envelope waiting for them on Karen's desk.

Inside was a note that said, _Your boy thought you might need some help._ Whoever wrote it had a rather legible scrawl, and had done it on official Gringotts stationery.

Also inside was a check made to Nelson & Murdock, bestowing upon them a total amount of $1,200,000, from a reputable bank in New York.

Foggy said, after a long, stunned silence, "Holy fucking _shit_."

"Can we discuss a raise?" asked Karen. "Once I get back, anyway--there's something I need to do first."

\--

Ron and Harry were sharing candy when Kate slid the compartment doors aside and said, "Hi, Harry. Mind if Dany and I sit here? It's just that the company I was with was a drag."

"Nah, I don't mind," said Harry, moving over to let Kate slide in next to him. He felt Daenerys bumping up against his legs.

Ron stared at Kate, then at Harry. "Who's she?" he asked.

"I'm Kate," said Kate. "Kate Bishop, in fact. You're Ron, aren't you? From earlier?"

"Yeah, Ron Weasley," Ron said. "You're--You're a girl."

Kate raised a brow. "Really?" she asked, all faked cheer. "I would never have noticed. How astute."

Harry buried his face in his hands. "Kate," he pleaded. Then his eye caught on a pack of Chocolate Frogs. He snatched it up and said, "Hey, Ron, what are these?"

"Oh my god," said Kate, "who eats frogs? No, don't answer that, I know some people think they're delicious, but ew."

"No, they're not really frogs," Ron answered dismissively, "but see what the card is, I'm missing Agrippa."

"Oh, so there's a trading card with them," said Harry, who had seen classmates bringing in Pokemon training cards to school as though they were smuggling contraband through customs. As games with trading cards were forbidden, they _were_ smuggling in contraband, technically. "How many've you got?"

"Five hundred so far," said Ron, "but I'm missing Agrippa and Ptolemy. Maybe Agrippa's in there?"

Harry unwrapped the Chocolate Frog.

The Frog stared up at him with beady chocolate eyes, then hopped off him and onto Kate, who was reaching into a bag of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavored Beans. She let out a surprised scream, nearly toppling them both over as the frog hopped away from her and onto the table, then out the window through a small crack on the top.

"You said it wasn't a frog!" Kate hissed.

"Well, it's not," said Ron, confused.

"Food doesn't _hop_!"

Harry reached down to pick up the card that had fallen. A man with a long, flowing beard, a crooked nose, and bright eyes behind half-moon glasses looked back at him and smiled. Underneath him was a name Harry had read before: _Albus Dumbledore_.

"So _this_ is Dumbledore," he said.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of Dumbledore!" Ron said.

"Well, duh, before we got the letters we didn't even know Hogwarts was a thing," Kate huffed. "How would we hear anything about this Dumbledore guy?"

Harry turned the card over and read the description. He turned the card back over again and nearly dropped it.

"He's gone!" he exclaimed.

"Well, of course," said Ron, who was somewhat surprised at just how little these two knew of the world they were about to enter. "You can't expect him to hang around all day." He unwrapped a Chocolate Frog and made a face. "Not Morgana again," he said, "I've got six of her. Do either of you want one? You can start a collection."

"No thanks," said Kate, looking vaguely ill.

"You know," said Harry, "photographs like this tend to just stay still in the Muggle world."

"No," said Ron, "really?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "But there's something called a gif," he pronounced it gee-aye-eff, "that moves too. Here, Foggy pulled some strings and got me a laptop, I'll show you. And maybe even a movie, too."

\--

Somewhere outside of London, a woman wearing a golden mask said, in a tone that implied barely restrained anger, "They got away with Silk?"

"Some sacrifices must need be made," Mother Night said, steepling her fingers and looking at Madame Masque with narrowed eyes from across the table. The woman glared back with eyes pale as ice, the only visible part of her face. Mother Night wanted to rip that mask off her, how dare she speak to a superior of HYDRA in such a way? "Or would you rather the Black Widow and Hawkeye found out what we were planning?"

"Silk was a hard-won acquisition from Oscorp, and you know how loathe Norman Osborn is to part with his things," Madame Masque snarled. "It took me six months to come up with something compatible with her specific mutation, and two more to break her in, and now you've let the Black Widow _rescue_ her?"

"She was not the one the Black Widow wished to rescue," Dr. Zola said, installing his algorithm into one of his special computers, with three different screens that displayed three different things. He had modified his algorithm just a touch--instead of seeking out threats to eliminate, now it sought potential soldiers to turn to their cause. Some needed naught but a nudge. Others needed a harder push, which was where Madame Masque came in. "I doubt Belova would be willing to come with her rival, anyway. She has always been resentful of Romanova."

"Yes, but we've lost an asset!" Madame Masque snapped. "A valuable one!"

"Even valuable assets can be replaced," said Mother Night, with a shrug, just as a young man stormed into the room. "Ah, Kamran. I suppose the Inhumans have heard?"

"Not just my boss," Kamran spat, "but Medusa's heard too. Now we're going to need to be more careful, because Medusa's gotten wise to our operations!" He flung a hand out. "You let them leave with Silk! She could tell--"

"Nothing," Mother Night said. "That's what she can tell them. We were thorough about wiping her, and made sure not to speak of any sensitive subjects around her."

"And besides," said Dr. Zola, casually, "we have others. We can _make_ others." He turned, treating Madame Masque to the curious realization that a sentient computer was glaring at her. "What of your operations in Hell's Kitchen?" he asked, in a tone that implied he was fully aware of just how well they were going.

\--

"And that's number three," Gwen said, watching the warehouse going up in smoke. "Why was the explosion necessary, again?"

"It wasn't," Deadpool cheerily said.

Gwen let her head drop into her hands. "I really should've listened to Peter when he said never to team up with you," she muttered. "If this is how Daredevil feels whenever we team up, I'm getting him chocolates." She opened the bag full of files she had managed to steal away from the warehouse before Deadpool blew it up, unfolded one and scanned it over.

She said, "Hey, speaking of Daredevil, we should probably let him know about this Madame Masque character muscling in on Hell's Kitchen."

Then her phone started to blare: " _I'm a boss ass bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch--_ "

"Aww, you did take my suggestion!" Deadpool said, sounding strangely happy for a crazed mercenary who talked about missing his yellow boxes a lot.

"Excuse me," said Gwen, zipping up her bag and slinging it back onto her shoulder, "I've got to see a woman about a stolen ID."

\--

"Somewhat better than expected," said Madame Masque. It was truthful--she had expected the operations in Hell's Kitchen to outright _fail_ , what with Daredevil obsessively micromanaging every inch of it. That they were still going despite heavy hits by both Daredevil and his fellow vigilantes said something about the general competence of the men she had hired. Then again, it was New York, even the incompetent criminals had to get clever. "Despite some minor setbacks."

"The recurrent explosions are minor setbacks?" Kamran asked, deadpan.

"Yes," Madame Masque said. "It's worth mentioning that only the most visible warehouses were attacked, thus drawing attention away from the less visible parts of the operation. The Los Angeles branch is performing spectacularly well, so we can keep counting on that and on Bishop's support there." She turned to Kamran, and said, "Which reminds me, Kamran, how goes your boss's takeover attempt? I understand this is his third one in as many months."

"Less explosions, Madame Masque," Kamran answered, crossing his arms. "It's going slowly, but steadily. We're recruiting and turning more Inhumans to our cause."

"Do it faster," Mother Night said. "At this rate, the Avengers' numbers will swell even more before we can make our first move. Six was bad enough, but fifteen Avengers, along with those so-called Defenders traipsing around New York and all those unaffiliated and unregistered vigilantes, make things more difficult."

"And those--wizards?" Madame Masque asked. "The Philosopher's Stone?"

"Belova has that detail," Dr. Zola said. "I am told it is hidden in Hogwarts. To obtain such a powerful magical artifact, and to use its power to further our cause--it is a difficult task, but it should not prove impossible."

"And if someone were to take it before Belova does?" asked Madame Masque.

"She has her orders," said Dr. Zola, with full confidence.

\--

"Oh, _eugh_ ," said Kate, having nibbled on a green bean. "This tastes like broccoli. Who makes candy that tastes like _broccoli_?"

"Hey, trade you, I got toast," said Harry.

"Shh!" Ron hissed. His eyes were fixed now on the laptop's screen. Onscreen, Robert Downey Junior as Howard Stark was talking to Emily Blunt as Peggy Carter about the advanced technology that HYDRA had somehow managed to produce, and how he could reverse-engineer it to turn the tide of the war. "Blimey, wait till Dad hears this," he murmured.

"What, the part where Howard Stark didn't actually reverse-engineer a bunch of HYDRA weapons in a few months?" Harry asked.

"Not that!" Ron huffed, waving at the laptop. "This! It's--It's a lot like our photographs, except longer, and they don't know we're there!"

"Well, that's usually how it works for us," said Kate.

Someone knocked on the door to their compartment, drawing Kate and Harry's attentions away from their food and Ron's away from the rampant flirting between Blunt's Carter and Channing Tatum's Captain America, and moments later the door slid aside to reveal a round-faced boy, his cheeks wet with tears.

"Um," said Harry. "Hi?"

"I'm sorry to ask, but have you seen a toad at all?" the boy asked, anxiously.

Kate shook her head. "No, the only amphibians we've been handling are these Chocolate Frogs," she said. "If you want, though--"

The boy shook his head. "It's fine," he said, "I'll--I'll keep looking." He sniffed, and said, disconsolately, "I keep losing him."

"He'll turn up," Harry said, reassuringly. "In the meantime, come sit with us, we're screening _A Boy From Brooklyn_."

"Neville!" said a young girl, popping up behind Neville, her hair a wild and bushy thing that made Harry wonder if it had ever been brushed in her whole life. "Did you find your toad yet? Wait, is that--I thought magic and technology didn't get along!"

"Magic never met Tony Stark," said Harry, resignedly. "Come on in, we've got _A Boy From Brooklyn_ playing. I think Agent Carter and Captain America are dancing right now?"

"Oh, that," said the girl, dismissively. "I've seen it. It wasn't as good as people said it was."

"Not as good!" Ron cried. "This is _great_!"

"What's not great is how they treated Agent Carter," the girl shot at Ron. "She was a capable fighter in her own right. I mean, she went through the Cold War and founded SHIELD! Granted, SHIELD turned out to have HYDRA infecting it from the get-go, but she was still an important part of it nevertheless."

She looked at Harry, who was nibbling on a pumpkin pasty now and idly waving his wand over one of the Every-Flavored Beans in a valiant attempt to change the flavor to chocolate, and said, "You're Harry Potter, aren't you? I'm Hermione Granger, nobody in my family's magic so I was ever so surprised when I got my letter, I've been reading as much as I can since I picked up my books. I've been reading them over the summer and know them all by heart, I hope it will be enough, and I've picked up some others for background reading as well, and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Late Twentieth Century_."

"It's Nelson," said Harry, weakly, seeing Neville's eyes grow wide and slightly glazed over. He was just as impressed, she'd spoken all of that in one go. "Harry Nelson. I don't--I didn't know about any of that, I just found out about a month ago."

"I'm Kate," said Kate, "and I also just got my Hogwarts letter about a month ago. Kind of late, in fact."

"He's been living with Muggles," said Ron, not taking his eyes off the screen, "in America. New York, I think."

"Really?" asked Hermione, squeezing in next to Harry. "Were you doing magic? Let's see it, then."

"Um," said Harry. "Makeus this beanus chocolateus?"

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "That's not a real spell," she said.

"Hey, cut us some slack, we just found out we were magic like a month ago," Kate huffed. "And besides, if you know what a real spell is, why don't _you_ try?"

"Hey, so," said Harry, in a valiant attempt to try and cut off any arguments that might arise, because Hermione looked as though she could not believe these people, "I met someone who talked about getting into Slytherin, so--how do you get into a house? At Hogwarts, I mean."

"Oh, Slytherin," said Hermione, dismissively. "Did you know, a lot of the witches and wizards that practiced the Dark Arts came from Slytherin?"

"That," said Ron, finally looking up. "Slytherin's full of those. Never saw a wizard gone bad that didn't come from Slytherin."

"Wow," said Kate, "that's a bad rep. Poor non-bad people in Slytherin, jeez."

Harry shook his head. "Just because someone's gone bad doesn't mean they're from a house with a bad rep or anything," he said.

"Still, Slytherin's churned out a lot of dark wizards over the years," argued Ron. "There's gotta be _something_ to its reputation."

"Or maybe it's because everyone expects them to be bad, so why the hell not," Kate acidly said.

"So what are the other houses?" Harry interjected, looking at Neville.

"Well, there's Gryffindor," said Neville, and his voice was a nervous, shaky thing. "And--Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. And Slytherin too. It's just those four, though."

"I'd love to be in Gryffindor," said Hermione, eyes bright. "I hope I am, it sounds the best by far. Dumbledore was in it, in fact. What about you?"

"I'm just glad I'm going at all," Harry said, having spent very little time dwelling on what house he was going to be put into. "Ron?"

"Gryffindor, probably," said Ron. "My whole family's been in Gryffindor."

Kate shrugged. "I guess if I had to pick, I'd be either Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw," she said. "I'm kind of hoping for Ravenclaw."

"I'll probably be in Hufflepuff," said Neville, mournfully. Harry patted him on the back, and was rewarded with a surprised look and a small, hesitant smile.

"I bet people in Hufflepuff rule," said Harry.

Ron covered his mouth and gave a cough.

"Ravenclaw's good too, I suppose," said Hermione, before she took Neville by the hand. "We really must be going, though, we still need to find Neville's toad. It was a pleasure meeting you, Harry!"

Ron stared after her, as she and Neville took off, and said, "Whatever house I'm in, I hope it's not with her."


	13. On the Way to Hogwarts (or: Harry Gets in a Fight)

The credits rolled. Harry stuffed his laptop back into his trunk, and Ron had asked them both what team they were rooting for, and, once Harry and Kate had expressed confusion as to what team he was talking about, had launched into an explanation of Quidditch--it sounded exciting, to Harry, a sport played on broomsticks--and was describing the games he had been to and how his favorite team had been cheated in the last cup ("The referee was _blind_ , I swear!" he had burst out before he'd seen Harry raise a brow and remembered Matt and backtracked immediately) when the compartment doors slid open again.

It wasn't Hermione Granger or Neville the toadless boy this time, though. It was three boys, and the middle one--

"Didn't I break your nose?" Harry acidly said, to the pale boy he had met in Madam Malkin's shop. "You came back for another go, that it? I mean, your nose looks all fixed now."

"So it _is_ true," said the boy. "Harry Potter's on this train. I just didn't expect him to be _you_." He said _you_ with such a sneer it was a wonder his face didn't stick that way permanently.

"It's Nelson," said Harry. "Honestly, how many times do I have to say that?" He looked at the two heavyset boys in between the pale boy, and said, "Oh, you got your cronies with you this time? That's nice."

"These are Crabbe and Goyle," said the boy, airily. "I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

"We weren't asking," Kate said, icily. "But hey, nice to meet you, Ducky, Dumb and Dumberer."

Ron sniggered.

Malfoy seemed to swell with anger, and advanced on Kate and Ron. "Think my name's funny, huh?" he asked. "No need to tell me who you are. My father's told me all about the Weasleys, said they all have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

He whirled on Harry, and stuck out his hand, as Kate grabbed on to Ron and held him back. "I can forgive you for breaking my nose," he said, all pompous and snide. "After all, you don't want to go hanging around with the wrong sort."

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are without you, _Ducky_ , thanks," said Harry, keeping his hands at his sides and staying in his seat, and was treated to the sight of Malfoy turning--well, not purple with rage, but the tips of his ears turned a shade of furious pink.

"If I were you, I'd be a little more careful and more polite to my betters, Potter," Malfoy hissed. "Unless you are, you're going to go the same way your parents did. They didn't know what was good for them either, and hanging around with riffraff like Weasley and that Muggleborn and those Muggles in Diagon Alley--"

Kate, Ron and Harry stood up.

"Say that again," Ron growled.

"I broke your nose once," said Harry, feeling the rage thrumming under his skin, _beware of those Murdock boys, they got the devil in them_ , "I can damn well do it again."

"I chipped your tooth once," Malfoy replied, "I can still do that again."

"Wanna bet, Ducky?" Kate snarled, cracking her knuckles. "Or you wanna go crying to daddy about how you and your cronies got your asses beaten black and blue?"

"You want a fight, do you?" Malfoy asked.

"Unless you get out," Harry said, but there was a small part of him that really, _really_ wanted that fight. Most of him, however, remembered what Matt had told him about at least trying to stay out of trouble. "And quit talking shit about Kate and Ron and my dads, too."

"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys?" Malfoy asked, his gaze falling on the still-wrapped Chocolate Frogs that Ron was working through. "We've eaten all our food, and you still seem to have some."

Goyle reached out an arm for the Frogs, just as Crabbe reached for the pasties. Ron leapt forward, and Kate drew her fist back, but just as Kate's fist slammed into Crabbe's face, Goyle snatched his hand back with a scream.

Scabbers had woken up, and had sunk sharp little teeth into Goyle's knuckle.

Harry took the opportunity provided by the chaos of Goyle tramping around screaming and shaking his hand to get the damn rat off to slam the door open, grab Malfoy by the back of his shirt, and throw him out the door with as much strength as he could muster in his body. Kate followed suit, throwing Crabbe out of the compartment with so much force that when he landed on Malfoy, Harry heard a high-pitched shriek.

There was a thud.

Scabbers had hit the window, it seemed, and now Ron was currently brawling with Goyle like an angry redheaded force of freckled vengeance. Harry and Kate grabbed on to Goyle, hauled him off Ron, and together, threw him out the door.

"And _stay out_!" Kate yelled, slamming the door closed. "Those assholes," she grumbled, dusting her hands off on her pants.

"Is Scabbers all right?" Harry asked, worriedly.

"He's fine, he's just been knocked out," said Ron, nonchalantly, as he picked up the rat. "I don't believe it. He's gone back to sleep."

And so he had, snoring peacefully away in Ron's hand. Harry privately thought he'd deserved that rest, and thus resolved to feed him a pasty or two for his part in the brief fight.

"You broke Malfoy's nose before?" Ron asked, as they settled back into their seats. There was a bruise blooming just below his eye, and Harry had decided to sit next to him to tend as best as he could, citing the fact that, as New Yorkers and lawyers who tended to do the right thing no matter what, sometimes Matt or Foggy got embroiled in some things that put them in danger, and Harry had gotten very good at treating minor bruises and scrapes.

He didn't say anything about Daredevil. He liked Ron, and he liked Kate, but Matt's secret was not his to give away.

"Yeah," he said, "he was being snide about Matt and Foggy. And Karen and Kirsten. I didn't think I'd run into him again, though."

"You know, it's weird that you keep telling people your last name's Nelson," said Ron. "I mean, Potter's a perfectly good name."

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, I know," he said, "but it's not--it's not my name. Not legally, anyway. And there's nothing wrong with Harry Nelson, it rolls off the tongue just fine too."

"I suppose," said Ron. "There's nothing wrong with Harry Potter either, though."

"There's a lot of fame attached to the name," Harry said. "And for something I don't even remember doing."

"You didn't say you met that Malfoy guy before," Kate said.

Harry shrugged. "It was just before I met you, when I was getting fitted for my robes, and he was saying stuff about my family," he said. "I wasn't going to take it lying down, so I--sort of broke his nose. And he chipped my tooth, too." He showed his teeth, pointing at the chipped tooth. "We didn't know each other's names at the time, though."

"Good," Ron muttered darkly. "I've heard about his family. They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared, said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't think so, he says Malfoy's father doesn't need to be bewitched to go over to the dark side."

"Come to the Dark Side, Luke," Kate said, in a breathy, sinister tone of voice.

"Your Vader needs improvement," said Harry.

"Vader?" asked Ron, puzzled.

"Oh man," said Harry, "oh man. You haven't seen Star Wars, you--oh, _boy_ , this is going to be great."

Then someone flung the door open, and Hermione stood in the doorway, glaring at them all with an air of self-righteous anger.

"What has been going _on_?" she demanded, taking in Ron's bruised face, currently being treated by Harry, the scattered sweets, the sleeping rat. "Did you get into a fight?"

"Can we help you?" Kate asked.

"Yes!" Hermione said. "Explain why you got into a fight! We're nearly to Hogwarts, I asked the conductor myself, and here you are acting like _children_!" Harry decided not to point out that, technically, they were all children here, and so Hermione continued, "Put your robes on, and try to look less like you were recently fighting with somebody, or you'll get in trouble before we even get there."

"It was _barely_ a fight," said Harry. And if it was barely a fight, he told himself, it hardly counted as one.

"Save Ron," said Kate. "I think he knocked out a tooth."

"I wish," said Ron, stiffly, glaring at Hermione. "Would you mind leaving while we changed?"

Hermione gave an imperious sniff. "All right," she said. "I only came in here because people were being quite childish, racing up and down the halls, and I heard a tremendous noise."

"We _are_ children, we're supposed to be childish," said Kate. "Also, a few guys tried to strong-arm us into handing over all our sweets. We took offense."

"You could've just talked to them nicely," Hermione huffed, then glanced at Ron. "You know you've got dirt on your nose, right?"

She left. Ron glared after her, and said, "Blimey, some people can't keep their noses out of things!"

\--

In New York, Karen stepped through the glass doors that led into the hallowed lobby of the Oscorp Tower, and gave the lady at the desk a polite smile. "I'm Karen Page," she said, "I work for Nelson & Murdock. I was told to go to your Legal department so I could speak to one of the junior lawyers?"

"Welcome to Oscorp, Ms. Page!" the woman cheerily said, then gestured to a box full of laminated IDs. "Please take a Visitor's Pass. Please be well aware that as a visitor, your access will be strictly restricted to certain areas open to the public."

"I'm aware, thanks," said Karen, reaching for the Visitor's Pass and pinning it to the front of her blouse.

"Just take the elevator to the third floor," said the girl, and Karen thanked her profusely before setting off.

Then she ducked into a bathroom, stuffed the pass into her purse, and slipped on an ID that bore the name _Monica Hunter_. There wasn't much make-up to apply or changes to her appearance to make, Monica Hunter looked remarkably like Karen, enough that all that was needed was the addition of colored contacts and a short red wig borrowed from Kirsten, under which Karen pinned up her hair.

She stepped out of the bathroom, and walked briskly towards the elevator, hoping no one recognized her clothes.

Spider-Woman had mentioned that the files she'd be looking for were on the same level as the main labs, near the very top. "They keep all the intern's files there," she had explained, "where Dr. Connors used to work."

"How do you know that?" Karen had asked her.

Spider-Woman had shrugged, and evasively answered, "I knew the guy before he went all Bowser on everyone," before tossing her the ID. "If I could guess, I'd say you'd be looking for Special Projects. It's near the labs, conveniently, but you'll need to time it right. Good luck."

"Ms. Hunter," someone's voice greeted her, and Karen snapped out of her thoughts to see a woman with dark hair and a clipboard dressed in a smart suit stepping into the elevator with her. "Nice to see you back at work again."

"Well, you know me," said Karen, plastering on a grin, "just can't _wait_ to go back to work!" She adjusted her purse and said, "I, uh, pardon me for asking, but--"

"Don't worry," said the woman, with a shrug and a smile. "It's Felicia Hardy."

\--

Wanda watched the students being ferried across the lake. From this far out, it was hard to pick out their faces, but she knew that among those bright, fresh-faced pupils was her old student. It made her heart hurt just a little, knowing that she wasn't going to be teaching him again--at least, unless he took up Muggle Studies in his third year.

Harry was a good kid, and a quick learner. She didn't doubt he would thrive here.

She didn't doubt she would thrive here too.

As long, of course, as no one tried to kill her. And as long as Quirrell didn't try anything, there was something--something _off_ about him, something deeply wrong. Matt hadn't liked him either, from what she could remember, and Matt was usually right about these things, frustrating as he could be at times.

There was something about Snape too, that greasy-haired Potions Master, that rubbed her the wrong way. She wasn't sure what it was, just that he was keeping something back. Not even her talent of brushing up against people's minds--and it was just a brush, a tentative touch most people didn't even detect, she had agreed to refrain from anything more--could discern what it was, and she was loathe to try and delve deeper.

She leaned on the battlements, and to the students, she seemed a speck, someone watching them come in for the first time.

The students didn't know it was her first time too.


	14. Before the Sorting

They followed Hagrid to the doors, a small crowd of children buzzing with excitement and anticipation, whispering about the houses they were sure to be in and the magic they would learn, wondering if the teachers would like them or not. Harry stuck close to Ron and Kate, and whispered, "Hagrid said there was a giant squid in the lake."

Kate glanced back, then said, somewhat skeptically, "Wouldn't it be a lot more territorial? We did just cross the lake, shouldn't it be a little angry?"

Ron shook his head. "Nah, most of the time it doesn't bother anybody," he said. "At least that's what Percy told me. I'll believe him over Fred and George."

"Why, what do Fred and George say?" Harry asked.

"It eats the flesh of first-years unlucky enough to fall into the lake," said Ron, his tone flat.

Kate inched closer to Harry, and further from the water, keen to put as much distance between her and the lake as possible. Harry glanced around, saw Neville cradling a toad and holding it close as though afraid it would slip his grasp again.

The castle loomed over them. If anyone were to be looking down on them now, as Wanda was, they would see a crowd of black ants crowding around the great oak doors, waiting for something, anything to happen. A thousand heartbeats pounded fast, almost like a thunderous symphony that Matt would've wept to hear, had he been there.

Hagrid knocked on the door, three times.

It swung open, and there stood a witch in green robes, her face stern and the point of her hat dropping slightly. Harry thought she looked rather like an older Elphaba from that play Foggy loved so much, except less green. Elphaba had been the Wicked Witch of the West. Harry fancied that this woman, if she put her mind to it, could command that same kind of fearsome reputation, and decided she was not someone to mess with.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid, nodding respectfully.

"Thank you, Hagrid," said Professor McGonagall, keen eyes surveying the crowd of slightly terrified students. "I will take them from here."

She swung the next door wide open, and Harry sucked in a breath, staring out in shock at the size of the entrance hall, the flaming torches, the ornate decorations, the marble staircase. It was awe-inspiring, and some little part of Harry wished he could've brought along a camera, or his phone, so he could snap a picture.

He stuck close to Kate and Ron, who were both struck silent by the impressive size of the entrance hall alone, and whispered, "You could probably fit about--ten offices in here. Fifteen, maybe."

"Twenty," Kate whispered.

"Depends," said Ron.

They hurried after McGonagall across the stone floor. Harry heard voices floating over to him, from a doorway on the right--the rest of the school had gotten here first, he figured--but McGonagall showed them to a large, empty chamber, where they all crowded in.

"Whose elbow's that?" Kate hissed.

"Oh, sorry!" came a high-pitched voice, belonging to a young girl with short black hair and a streak of red across the bridge of her nose.

Harry felt somebody's elbow digging into his side, and murmured, "Ron, is that you? Your elbow's hurting me."

"Sorry, Harry," Ron whispered, removing the elbow almost immediately.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said McGonagall, surveying the crowd of first-years with a keen eye. She spoke about the houses, the house cup, the Sorting Ceremony that was going to take place in front of the entire school. "I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting," she said, eyeing Neville's cloak, fastened under his left ear, the black smudge and bruises on Ron's face.

Harry combed a hand through his hair, trying to flatten it as best as he could. The curls sprang back out of place as they usually did, and he gave a resigned sigh.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said McGonagall, and she swept out of the chamber and left them all alone.

"Well," said Kate, "how are they going to sort us, then?"

"Beats me," said Harry. "Ron?"

"Don't know either," said Ron, apologetic. "Some sort of test? Fred said it hurts a lot, but I don't really believe him."

Harry felt his heart lurch into his throat. Were they going to have to do magic? In front of the whole school? That wasn't fair, not many of them knew _anything_ about magic yet, that was the point of their coming here. He looked around, anxiety and panic rising fast in his chest, and saw the frightened, terrified looks on everyone else's faces. Nobody was saying a word, save Hermione, who was muttering something about the spells she learned and which ones would she need to use to prove herself worthy of being a student here.

"If we die," said Kate, quiet, "it's been nice knowing you all."

Ron made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. So did a sandy-haired boy, nearby.

Harry gulped. He hadn't been this nervous when he and Foggy accidentally broke Mrs. Figgs' window while playing catch when he was seven, and Mrs. Figgs when angry was absolutely terrifying. This was a thousand times worse.

Then people started screaming behind him.

"What in the _hell_ \--" Kate started.

Harry gasped, as did most of the people around him--those that hadn't screamed, anyway. There were--shit, there were _ghosts_ streaming out of the wall in front of them, translucent and white as snow, and Harry thought, were these the ghosts of those who had failed whatever test was awaiting them?

Except--no, one of them was a rather plump monk, saying, "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance--"

"My dear Friar," said another ghost, which confirmed the monk suspicion, "haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves?"

"Peeves who?" said Kate.

The ghosts stopped talking, then turned to look at the crowd of terrified first-years. A little behind him, Harry heard the unmistakable sound of someone's bladder letting go.

"New students!" said the ghostly monk, quite pleasantly. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?"

" _Eep_ ," said a tall boy with blonde hair tied back into a haphazard ponytail.

Harry nodded mutely, absently noting that his voice seemed to have evaporated.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the monk, cheerful as ever, clearly unmindful of the terror most of the students were experiencing to various degrees. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," came a sharp voice, and Harry looked away to find Professor McGonagall, stern as ever. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

\--

Felicia had been surprisingly difficult to shake off. Karen half-suspected she knew what Karen was really here for, and was adamant on keeping her from those files, but something had finally called her away--a board meeting, apparently. "Like herding cats," Felicia had laughed, and then walked away.

Karen had watched her leave, smiling all the while, then ducked into a staircase and went three floors down as quick as she could.

The lab near Special Projects was filled to the brim with people in labcoats, buzzing about and shouting to each other about this experiment or that survey or those results. There were interns about, though, and Karen was silently thankful for that, because it enabled her to blend in easily. No one seemed to notice her, and they especially did not notice her cracking open a door and stepping inside.

All right. Files.

She took her bag off her shoulder, knelt down in front of a filing cabinet, and pulled it open. She cursed whoever filed these, because good _god_ were they a _mess_ , then started rifling through them and slipping the relevant ones to the cases at Nelson & Murdock into her bag.

Then her eyes caught on a nondescript-looking file, one that read SILK. Manicured fingers pulled it out and started rifling through the contents.

"My god," she whispered. She stuffed it none too gracefully into her bag, then slid the drawer shut and stood up, pulling out another drawer--this one with all the interns that had left Oscorp in some way.

Malvarez, Marcus, Mercer, Mills--there: _Moon, Cindy_. Karen all but yanked it out of its place, shoving the drawer back in and opening the file.

Silk, minus the bags under her eyes and the gauntness she had seen, grinned up at her, carefree, from a one-by-one ID photo. Her hair was tied into a messy bun, and she'd written _hockey! :)_ in her hobbies in a loopy, cheery scrawl. Karen felt her heart break all the more.

Seventeen, was the age on her file. She had been seventeen when she went missing.

Good god, Silk was just a _girl_.

She stuffed the file into her bag, zipped it back up, and readjusted the wig before walking out of the office, the picture of a haggard intern just about to return home with all the rest of them.

She slipped past the scientists, the interns, the guards, then stepped back into a bathroom out of the way of any crowd and slipped Monica Hunter's ID off her neck, took the wig off and wiped off the makeup.

Karen Page stepped back out of the building with a bag full of stolen files and, unbeknownst to her, a black cat watching her from her perch nearby.

Felicia watched her, keen eyes tracking the blonde secretary as she wove in and out of the New York crowd. She smiled.

Well. It seemed the non-vigilante people of Nelson & Murdock were far more dangerous than anyone had given them credit for. No matter, Felicia had Karen's scent. She could follow her through the city with no trouble at all.

She sprang off the fire escape, landing on her feet on a rooftop, keeping an eye on Page all the while.

\--

As Karen stepped into the offices of Nelson & Murdock in New York, Harry and his fellow first-years were filing nervously into the Great Hall, and Harry was incredibly aware of all the eyes on them all. No one seemed to be paying more attention to him than would be usual to pay to a first-year, and he hoped that, for now, it would stay that way.

And god, there were a lot of eyes on them all. Harry gulped, then glanced up at the ceiling for something to look at. He sucked in a breath, seeing a thousand floating lights like stars against the night sky. It seemed as though the ceiling had been opened to let in the night sky.

"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside," whispered Hermione. "I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_."

"We didn't ask," Ron grumbled.

Kate muttered, "Ron, I kind of like you, but please shut up." She made a face, and said, "Is that a hat? Are we supposed to pull a rabbit out of it?"

Harry looked back down, to find McGonagall placing a frayed hat onto a stool. The tip was worn and bent, seeming to droop quite sadly, and Harry snorted a slightly hysterical laugh. _Were_ they supposed to pull a rabbit out of it? Not only had that never worked for him, but it was just a trick, a trap door thing, as far as he could tell.

Then the hat twitched.

Then a rip near the brim opened wide, and Harry realized it was a mouth just as the hat started to sing.

A young boy, behind him, proceeded to faint out of sheer shock.

Harry himself did not faint, but it was a very near thing.

\--

"I am going," said Ron, very calmly, after the hat finished its song and the hall burst into excited applause, "to kill Fred. He said we'd have to fight a troll!"

"You never know," Kate muttered, as the hat bowed to all four tables and then went still again.

Harry smiled weakly. He didn't feel brave at heart, or just and loyal, or cunning, or quick-witted. He just felt absolutely terrified. What if, he thought, there had been some sort of mistake? What if he put the hat on and the hat said he wasn't meant to be a part of this school after all? What if this was the furthest he went before they sent him home with a letter that apologized for the mistake? He watched Professor McGonagall step forward, a long roll of parchment in her hands, saying something about calling names, but his head was in a turmoil of what-ifs and what-might-happens.

"You okay?" Kate murmured.

"Terrified," Harry admitted.

"Me too," said Kate.

" _Abbott, Hannah!_ " came the shout.


	15. Arguments with a Hat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long to upload, I fell into a Hamilton spiral.
> 
> btw: spot the DA2 reference! who'll be more than a reference in future chapters.

" _Bishop, Kate!_ "

Kate stood up. Harry took her hand and squeezed it, and said, "Good luck."

Kate grinned and said, "You too, Nelson," and marched up to the stool. She lifted the hat and placed it over her head. The hat fell over her eyes, and seemed to deliberate for a few moments before it opened its mouth to call:

" _SLYTHERIN!_ "

" _What_!" Ron shouted. "Are you--Is that hat _mental_?!"

Kate snatched the hat off her head, looking shocked by the declaration. She slammed it back onto the stool, then sucked in a breath and marched over to the Slytherin table, a good chunk of which eyed her as though the hat had made a mistake of some kind. The rest, however, stood up and cheered wildly, welcoming her to their table with an enthusiasm that more than made up for their housemates' reluctance to do so.

Kate's anger seemed to melt away like snow in summer, as those housemates hugged her and cheered her. Soon she was laughing, getting clapped on the back, even raised up in the air like a rock star.

She looked back and smiled at Harry.

Harry grinned back.

Maybe Slytherin wouldn't be that bad.

\--

" _Granger, Hermione_!"

" _GRYFFINDOR!_ "

Ron groaned audibly, as Hermione all but skipped over to the Gryffindors' table and " _Hawke, Marian_ " was called to be declared a Hufflepuff.

Oh, _hell_.

\--

" _Khan, Kamala_!"

The hat, Harry noticed, sometimes seemed to pause before declaring someone's house. It was as if it was deliberating which house would be the best fit for its current wearer, something it didn't do with others. It paused now with _Khan, Kamala_ , whose eyes flicked in between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw's tables.

Then:

" _RAVENCLAW_!"

\--

" _Longbottom, Neville_!"

"You're gonna make it, Neville," Harry whispered as Neville hurried past. The boy stopped and turned to him, clearly surprised by Harry's comment. Harry gave him a thumbs-up in return, and Neville smiled--honest and true.

Then he turned back, sucked in a breath, and marched over to the stool, managing not to trip over himself in the process.

" _GRYFFINDOR!_ " the hat shouted, after some time had passed.

\--

" _Malfoy, Draco_!"

" _SLYTHERIN!_ "

Harry glanced at Kate, who looked absolutely horrified at the prospect of sharing the same living space as the boy who she'd helped Harry throw out of their compartment. He would never tell her this, not in a million years, but he felt incredibly sorry for her for getting Malfoy for a housemate.

He hoped to god he didn't get Slytherin. He didn't know how long he could stand to be in the same house as the boy who'd insulted both his biological _and_ adoptive parents without punching him in the face.

\--

" _Nott, Theodore_!"

Ron glanced at Harry, whose brows had knitted together in worry. "You all right?" he whispered.

"They didn't call my name," Harry whispered back. "Maybe there was a mistake after all."

"No there wasn't," Ron said, fiercely. There was a shout, a roar of applause, but Ron wasn't paying attention to any of that now. His friend was scared that he wasn't a part of this like he had thought. Ron wasn't going to let him think that.

Harry shook his head. "They didn't say Nelson, they skipped straight to Nott," he said, and another name occurred to Ron.

"Maybe you're not down as Nelson," he said. "They've got your name down in the books since you were born, right? You're not there as Harry _Nelson_."

"Oh," said Harry, realization mixed with horror dawning on his face, "hell."

Soon enough, the hat shouted:

" _Potter, Harry_!"

\--

Harry sucked in a breath, turned away from Ron, and started walking towards the stool where the hat sat. He could hear the whispers spreading like wildfire throughout the hall:

"Potter, did she say? _The_ Harry Potter?"

"I can't believe it, is that really him?"

"Merlin, _that's_ the Boy Who Lived?"

Harry tried the hat on. It dropped over his eyes, blocking his view of all the people trying to get a good look at him. He could be thankful for that much, he supposed, at the very least he wouldn't have to see--

"Hmm," came a little voice.

 _Oh, shit,_ thought Harry. _The hat's talking to me._

"Observant, aren't you?" the hat remarked, clearly amused. "Plenty of courage as well, I see. Maybe a bit too much for someone your age."

 _I blame Matt_ , Harry thought, giving a small laugh. He heard an answering chuckle from the hat, and added, _And it's Nelson, by the way._

"I take it this Matt's responsible for how fair you try to be," the hat said.

_And Foggy._

"Who names their child Foggy?"

 _I never asked._ Harry sucked in his lower lip.

"Difficult," the hat absently noted. "Rather difficult. You've a reckless sort of courage, and a temper to match. But you couldn't turn away from an injustice, you're too fair for that. Not a bad mind either, and you've a thirst to prove yourself--as Harry _Nelson_ , not Harry Potter. Where shall I put you?"

Harry gripped the armrest tight. _Not Slytherin, not Slytherin_ , he chanted.

"Not Slytherin, eh? You're sure about that? You could be great, it's all here in your head, Slytherin could help you along on your way to greatness, no doubt about that."

_Well, if you want me to punch a guy in the face my first day here..._

The hat chuckled again. "Ah, yes, best to avoid that," it said, "as Slytherin is clearly out of the question for you if we want lasting peace in their dorm for the next few years, I find that I have no choice left but to place you in-- _GRYFFINDOR_!"

The Gryffindor table broke into loud cheers and whoops after the hat shouted that last part, as Harry stood and took the hat off. Somehow he managed to get to the table without collapsing, his legs were so shaky, and Percy was congratulating him on being sorted into their house and Fred and George were laughing and celebrating and Harry--Harry looked at the Slytherin table.

Kate grinned at him, from where she was seated (not next to Draco, and thank God for that) and gave him a thumbs-up.

Harry grinned back, then turned back to his new housemates.

" _We got Potter! We got Potter!_ "

"It's Nelson," said Harry, getting the feeling that he would be repeating that phrase quite a few times over the year. Then he jumped about a foot in the air when he felt an ice-cold feeling shoot down his arm.

"Well, that's somewhat rude," remarked the ghost he was sitting beside, though said ghost seemed more amused than offended.

Harry made a choked noise that sounded like " _why me_ ".

\--

Felicia crouched down on a rooftop a few blocks away from the building where Nelson & Murdock was located. Page had just headed inside, bag full of stolen evidence, and now Felicia was waiting on--well. Something to happen. She could see their silhouettes from here through the window, see a man gesturing wildly and waving a folder about, but she didn't know what they were saying.

She really should've bugged the place when she had a chance, she reflected. But hell, here she was now.

\--

One of the proud traditions of Nelson & Murdock was the Terrible Decisions Whiteboard, as Kirsten had taken to calling it. From what she had been told, it had been established mostly to keep track of how long any of them had gone without making a Terrible Decision. The capital letters were deserved, because usually when someone in the Nelson & Murdock offices made a bad decision, it was usually a huge and terrible disaster.

It now read, " _It Has Been 0 DAYS since a member of this office has made a Terrible Decision_ ".

"Did they get your face on camera?" Foggy was asking Karen, anxiously. "I mean, I've been to Oscorp. They've got cameras everywhere. Even on the outside of their buildings! Why have they got cameras there, anyway--"

"I suspect it's to keep away the spiders," said Matt.

"And the devil," Kirsten remarked, deadpan.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Matt innocently said.

"Even if they did, I had a lot of makeup on," said Karen. "And I was wearing someone else's ID. They'll identify her instead of me." She didn't sound that assured, but she was holding a file as well, one that had SILK printed on it in impersonal letters. Kirsten had traded files with her just a few minutes ago, and now rifled through the contents of Cindy Moon's file.

They were scant, but they were enough for Kirsten to paint a picture of the girl Silk had been before HYDRA had gotten its hands on her.

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't end up going into evil lairs all by ourselves?" Foggy asked. "I mean, that's never worked out too well for any of us. Matt, back me up here, remember the fiasco with the Hand and your ex five years ago?"

"All too well," said Matt.

"You know," said Kirsten, "I could've come along with you. If you wanted."

Karen shook her head. "No, Oscorp knows what all of you look like, and they'd tamper with the files you would've gotten," she said. "But they don't pay attention to me." She smiled. "Perks of being just the secretary, to them."

Matt let out a breath. "It was still an unnecessary risk," he started.

"There are so many things I can say to that," said Kirsten, "but they all amount to: _you are such a goddamn hypocrite_ , Matt."

"I'm well aware," Matt dryly said.

"Look," said Karen, "I got the files. I made damn sure I wasn't followed, I took a different route and doubled back about twenty times to shake off any tails, and now--"

"You're sure?" Matt asked.

"Matt, I think we'd be in a lot more trouble than we already are if Karen had been followed," said Foggy, picking up a file more relevant to one of the cases they had going against Oscorp. "Sure, we'd kind of have to lie our faces off about how, exactly, did we come by this evidence, but--hey, Karen, will your spidery friend be okay with getting blamed for that?"

"She's been blamed for worse," said Karen.

Matt seemed to cock his head to the side, as though listening to something. Kirsten figured it was--whatever enabled him to fight crime even while blind, as much as he denied it. Then he said, "Right--look over the files, I'll--"

"--head down to the precinct?" Foggy said, the tone of his voice and the way he raised a brow betraying his skepticism.

Kirsten managed to keep back a laugh. She'd worked here for two years, and over that time the effort Karen and Foggy put into keeping up the " _Matt is not Daredevil_ " pretense around her had decreased significantly. Even Matt seemed to mostly forget that, technically, he hadn't officially let her in on it yet.

"Yeah," said Matt. "Brett might have something."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. I know a _ton_ of you are going to riot at the Sorting choices, especially Kamala's, but hear me out: I needed to find a way to balance out the three Gryffindors with one representative from the other three houses--and I already have plans in place for Cedric Diggory as the Hufflepuff of the gang in the next book or so, which leaves Kate as the Slytherin (cunning, ambitious, willing to use any means to reach her goal--which is not a bad thing, as she demonstrates) and Kamala as the Ravenclaw (yeah, she'll be part of the crew too--smart, thinks outside of the box, creative in reaching her goals).
> 
> (but I really, really wanted to sort Kamala into Hufflepuff. that's actually my personal headcanon for her but alas.)

**Author's Note:**

> main ao3 account: [QueenWithABeeThrone](http://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/works)  
> tumblr account: [buckygreyjoy](http://buckygreyjoy.tumblr.com/) (always open to headcanons, suggestions and prompts!)


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